Established in 2019, we are a dynamic social enterprise which aims to ‘rewild’ childhood, boost the nature-connectedness and wellbeing of communities and promote regular nature time as preventative healthcare. We run engaging and inspiring nature sessions for adults, kids and families to enhance the quality of life of our participants, especially in some of our most vulnerable groups.
Founder and Director Natasha Kater set up Woodland Wakeup almost 6 years ago in response to her observations of a decade as a primary teacher: children spending much of their time on screens and rarely getting out to play was impacting their physical and emotional resilience, creativity, independence and ability to focus.
She saw that the mainstream model of education was simply not working for many children and how this was often detrimental to their self-esteem while negatively impacting the teaching and learning of whole classes and even full school communities.
For the first two years, Natasha developed Woodland Wakeup as a ‘Community Interest Company’ while continuing to teach part time.
Although initially developing “Forest School” to get kids out to explore and play in the natural world, after 18 months of successful delivery we responded to feedback from the families of attending kids to begin running family ‘stay and play’ sessions.
We then got funding to start delivering adult nature sessions to boost the mental health of vulnerable groups, for example, adults with learning disabilities or those that have experienced bereavement, trauma, addiction or long term physical or mental health issues.
In the following years, we ran sessions for toddlers, sessions for general adult wellness, birthday parties and programmes for schools. We developed partnerships (link) with a variety of local and national organisations…
Woodland Wakeup was officially for everyone!
With a strong core admin and session delivery team, we plan to expand our reach to benefit as many communities as possible, so we are always interested to hear from others that want to get involved! There is a huge amount of work that goes into the running of Woodland Wakeup: for the nature sessions as well as background admin, and everything we do is dependent on funding. We will continue applying for grants and developing our relationships with larger funders such as The National Lottery. However, if you wish to support our work you can donate using the button below.
We understand that lots of people are experiencing difficult times just now. Woodland Wakeup believes that there are few social issues that cannot, in some way, be alleviated by improving the nature-connectedness of our communities.
We also have plans to start boosting biodiversity, with funding to partner with Eadah Enterprises to support rewilding and tree planting community projects. We want to increase the flora and fauna of our local spaces while empowering communities, building up their skills and aspirations and promoting pro-environmental behaviours. Great for people and awesome for the planet too!
There may not be a ‘magic bullet’ to address all the problems people are facing, but we believe that increasing everyone’s nature time is a great place to start.
Our small core team is also supported by a number of part-time session assistants and a top notch board of charity trustees.
Founder, Director & Forest School / Nature Adventure Session Leader
Having worked for almost a decade as a primary teacher in Scotland and internationally, Natasha’s priority was always to develop children’s resilience, independence, creativity, thinking skills… and to get them out to play in nature!
Passionate about the importance of nature-connectedness for individuals and society, she aims to instil in communities a love and wonder of the natural world and is motivated to give young people a spark of the magic of nature that she experienced during her own wild and free childhood.
As well as teaching regular nature-connection activities, Natasha loves facilitating philosophical inquiry and mindfulness to promote people’s ability to reason, manage their emotions, focus their thoughts and be at peace with themselves in our chaotic world.
With her interest in Permaculture, Natasha is excited about getting communities involved in some future rewilding and tree-planting projects thereby helping people’s self-esteem and love of nature while also promoting best-practice in tree-planting and boosting biodiversity.
She loves seeing people thrive and come alive when exploring wild places and is looking forward to bringing the huge benefits of a nature connection to some of our community’s more vulnerable groups, children, adults and families in future sessions.
Natasha can provide in-service training for schools and other social organisations, to promote nature-connectedness practices for community wellbeing and to boost staff skills and confidence to get service-users out to benefit from regular nature time.
Administrator / Session Assistant
Toni-Ann has a background in community justice and community development, supporting young people and families experiencing a range of social challenges. She is passionate about helping others to live a happy, healthy and fulfilled life, and believes everyone has unique gifts and abilities that they can use and share with others to create wonderful change in the world.
Having joined Woodland Wakeup in 2022 as an Administrator, Toni-Ann loves organising and streamlining the background work that ensures Woodland Wakeup can deliver its incredible Forest School activities. She also applies for funding and manages our social media content.
Toni-Ann has also enjoyed the opportunity to observe the benefits of nature time by assisting at kids’ camps; seeing the children in their natural element is incredible, and it certainly brings the background work to life!
Volunteer Assistant
Dawn started volunteering with Woodland Wakeup in 2021. With a background as a swimming teacher, previous working with early years, and a pas she has helped us to support many different types of groups and sessions, including our adult learning disability gardening group at Eglinton Community Garden, our adult wellness sessions and family stay and play sessions. However, Dawn particularly loves helping out at the kids’ sessions and bringing along her own children to join in the fun, as well as supporting young people with additional support needs at our sessions for kids and teenagers.
Community Interest Company:
Registered Company No. 606929
A dynamic social enterprise in North Ayrshire, Scotland, which aims to ‘rewild’ childhood and reconnect communities with the natural world.
Copyright © 2022 Woodland Wakeup Community Interest Company. All rights reserved.
