Warwickshire Wildlife Trust was today celebrating the award of two separate grants from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR), through its Environmental Action Fund. Each project is being supported with a 50% grants by DETR. The Patchwork Project supports community groups in Coventry, and the GLOBE Programme encourages children in schools to measure their local environment, with links to 80 countries throughout the world via the Internet. Both projects bring benefits to local people, as well as the environment, and have already been running for one year of a 3-year programme.

The grant of £12,000 for Patchwork is aims to support community groups in the Hillfields and Tile Hill areas of Coventry, to improve their local environments. It will provide support through a new Patchwork Project Person, who will be appointed soon, and will be able to give advice and support as well as assisting with funding for local projects.

Phil Dickin, the Trust's Community & Education Manager, said:

"This grant is great news for Coventry, bringing new support for improving our local environment. The actual projects will depend on the needs of the communities, but could include such things as wildlife gardens in schools, neighbourhood nature trails, environmental projects for children, nestbox and bat box building, or a host of other things."

The GLOBE Programme originated in the USA as an idea of Vice President AI Gore. As a result of the grant of £40,000, more schools throughout Coventry, Warwickshire and Solihull - and indeed the whole of the UK - will be able to become GLOBE schools. This allows each school to pass its own measurements of the environment to the USA where computers produce daily images of our planet based on the children's data. GLOBE also encourages school links internationally using the Internet, so giving a greater awareness of the impact we all make on the planet. All details of GLOBE are on their website.

Trust Director, Dr Andy Tasker, said:

"This support from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions will enable children everywhere to get more involved with their local environment, and find out more about other children throughout the world and the environmental issues that they face. Linking the Internet with the local environment in this imaginative way shows how technology can help provide solutions, as well as encouraging more people to find out about environmental issues."