Declare You Care
Our Earth Care manifesto
what makes declare you care different?
Declare You Care is driven by a sense of joyful optimism. We are grounded in reality, but we don’t spread messages of fear and guilt. Instead, we focus on encouraging people to connect with our beautiful planet and to act with courage and love.
We invite the community to create a manifesto for change!
First … Connect
Next … Find out
Then … Act – forever
Behind all of this is a deep respect for Traditional Owner wisdom and connection to Country. We invite everybody to walk together and celebrate the wonder of our incredible and diverse world.
This is:
Nature led
Fact fuelled
Action driven
Change that matters
Declare You Care empowers families to embrace the idea of change and to do things differently through a vivid and colourful story.
This is our biggest project yet. And we’re inviting you to join us!
what’s an Earth Care Manifesto?
Your Earth Care Manifesto is a statement about what matters to you and your family.
It’s a set of values. And it will help guide and support you as you make positive changes in your life to create a climate safe future.
Getting clear on what matters to you BEFORE you take any other action is the secret to creating powerful lifelong changes and new habits. Our manifestos help us make good choices in our everyday living.
It’s a bit like preparing the soil, planting the seeds and letting them germinate for a little before they grow! We need to nourish ourselves and look inwards before we can look outwards.
Follow the steps below to create your own Earth Care Manifesto. This is something the whole family can do together.
create your Earth Care Manifesto
You can make your Earth Care Manifesto in 4 easy steps. If you can, we encourage you to do this together as a whole family. Children can play such an important role in this journey and it’s a beautiful way to encourage them to use their voice and feel like their ideas matter … because they do!
Step 1 - Tune into planet Earth and nature
Go for a short walk in nature together. This could be in your neighbourhood, at a local park or even a little weekend bushwalk.
Stop, look and listen. Touch the bark and leaves of the trees. Switch on all your senses. What things can you see that you love? What other things in nature do you love? Ask some questions to spark a gentle conversation.
While you are there, you could take some photos of your favourite things or a family photo of yourselves in nature. You might like to sit and draw, read a beautiful poem, or simply lay down and look at the sky. You could collect some special stones, feathers of leaves. If you’re not able to go outside in nature, you could close your eyes and listen to this peaceful meditation.
Our planet Earth is an incredible ecosystem that we belong to. You ARE nature too. Knowing what you love about nature is the first step in finding out what is important to you and your family.
Step 2 - Download your free Earth Care Manifesto game cards
The next step is to download your FREE Earth Care Manifesto game cards. Cut out the squares (a good activity for the kids!). Each of these squares has a value or action on it to help you create your Earth Care Manifesto.
Step 3 - Play the Earth Care Manifesto game
Sit down together with your family and explain what you are doing and why. You could print out this letter from me (dirtgirl!) and read it.
Place all of the cards in the middle. Take turns choosing the cards that are important to you and your family.
When you’re choosing your cards think about these two questions:
What’s important to our family?
How do we want to care for each other and our planet Earth?
There are also some blank cards so you can write your own ideas.
Step 4 - Write your Earth Care Manifesto
Using the words on the cards you’ve chosen or written yourselves, write your Earth Care Manifesto on a piece of paper.
Stick a copy of your manifesto where everyone can see it. The fridge door is a good place! Or you could frame it and hang it on the wall. If you’re creative, you might even like to put your Earth Care Manifesto on a T-shirt or tea towel.
If you need some more ideas and inspiration, you can find some examples below. Use the arrows to scroll and click on the images to read each one.
Step 5 - Share your Earth Care Manifesto!
Now it’s time to share it! Take a photo of your Earth Care manifesto and share it on social media. Or record and share a video of you reading it out.
Use the hashtags #dirtgirlworld #DeclareYouCare #EarthCareManifesto and tag us at @dirtgirlworldofficial (Instagram) or @dirtgirlworld (Facebook).
Tag your friends and family to inspire them to create their own manifesto. Share the link to this page in your post. This will help to spread the magic and create a ripple effect!
Each month, we’ll select 5 manifestos to feature on dirtgirlworld’s social media.
We know that not everything has to be shared to the public. We understand if it’s one of your family values to keep your information private. You could send or simply show it to your family and friends, and encourage them to join the fun. Or you can keep it just for yourself. There is no one right or wrong way to create better change!
Step 6 - Reimagine your world
Imagine what your home or backyard could look like with your manifesto guiding you. What would it look like in real life? Does it have a kitchen garden, bicycles out the front, solar panels on the roof or a rainwater tank?! Draw, paint, make a vision board, or have fun with creative programs like Canva. Get the kids involved. Encourage them to put their ideas into pictures. Create a picture of your new world!
Talk about what your Earth Care manifesto might mean for the choices that you make today and tomorrow. For example, when you’re next at the shops, what will you think about before you buy something? When you have a party, what type of choices would you make? What would you do differently than before?
Join our FREE Declare You Care program!
Join us to discover and activate the 10 biggest ways that your family can grow a climate safe future. It’s an incredible online program that will change your world! And best of all, it’s FREE!
