Save the date to donate to Hedgehog Friendly Schools between the 20th - 27th April 2023 and give children the opportunity to save a species. Please note the donate button will appear on the campaign page when the Green Match Fund launches on the 20th April. The donate button will disappear on the 27th April at 12pm.
Hedgehog Friendly Schools
Hedgehogs are now on the Red List of threatened species in the UK and up to 60% of children have never seen one in the wild. With your help, the Hedgehog Friendly Schools project will support children to understand and help this vulnerable species in the place they learn and play.
The situation
Hedgehogs are often classed as the nation’s favourite mammal but are now vulnerable to extinction in the UK. Numbers are falling because human activity causes habitat loss, habitat fragmentation and fatal hazards. Once common in our countryside and gardens, up to 60% of children now say they’ve never seen a hedgehog in the wild and often don’t know what they can do to help.
The solution
We believe that overcoming the threats hedgehogs face starts with education. Using their school grounds as a classroom, children will learn about the ecology of hedgehogs, how their own choices can make an impact and discover some simple solutions we can apply in our own backyards. With your support, children will get hands-on experience with practical conservation such as habitat creation and biodiversity surveying which benefit many species.
Campaign aims
- Send Hedgehog Activity Boxes to at least 50 schools across the UK. The boxes will be filled with interactive, hands-on teaching resources that can be delivered outdoors to help children understand hedgehogs.
- To increase children’s understanding of hedgehog decline and the solutions.
- Give children opportunities to create new habitats for hedgehogs in their own schools.
- Provide resources and training that allow children to monitor hedgehogs at their school.
- To provide the opportunity to schools in predominantly low-income areas, which often have less access to nature and green space.
What we hope to achieve:
- Engage at least 1500 primary-aged children (30 per school) in learning about hedgehogs and demonstrate an increase in awareness of the hazards and solutions to hedgehog decline.
- Create new hedgehog-friendly zones through the planting of trees and hedges, wildflowers and wild spaces.
- Measurably increase hedgehog activity on the school grounds through the creation of these new habitats.
Children will be shown how to recognise the signs of hedgehogs so they can monitor them at school. Each school will be asked to participate in a survey before and after the project to help us understand the change in awareness of the hazards and solutions to hedgehog decline.
What is match funding?
The Big Give's Green Match Fund is designed specifically for charities working on environmental issues. So, when you donate to Hedgehog Friendly Schools through the Big Give campaign online, they ask philanthropists, foundations or corporates to match that donation.
So for example, £10 from a member of the public, becomes £20 for a good cause.
Any donations raised over the overall target count as extra donations to our campaign to make positive changes for hedgehogs. For Hedgehog Friendly Schools, we hope to reach £20,000 in donations between the 20th - 27th April, which will then be matched to £40,000. You MUST use this link to make a donation. You can only donate during the week of the 20th - 27th April. Double your donations, double your impact.
For insight, a donation of £20 covers the cost of just 1 hedgehog tracking tunnel. Whilst a donation of £100 covers the cost of hedge and tree packs.
We will publish blogs on our website to share the project’s progress and help others to learn how they can help! You can also follow @hogfriendly on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for social media updates.