Pandas make an appearance at the Digital Cotswold Job Club

Possibly not a headline you expected to read this morning, but it’s true, Panda’s really did make an appearance at our Digital Cotswold Job Club thanks to a former World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Volunteer.

The Job Club is a joint project between GRCC, the GEM project (which is jointly funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and European Social Fund), and P3. The WWF ex-volunteer, who had been invited along by joint organiser of the job club, Daniel Gale, joined the group on Google Meet to talk about a Penguin count that attendees could volunteer to join in with and thus build their CV.

This is all part of a Zoological Society of London programme called ‘Instant Wild’ to promote citizen science and attendees were shown how to access a camera set up in the Red Panda enclosure to hone in their skills of observation.

There were many other volunteering opportunities discussed and this really is the essence of job club. A fun and interesting zone where participants can build their skills and CV in order to progress into employment.

In addition, Edinburgh Zoo have a live webcam of their Panda enclosure, which was used during various lockdowns to help individuals stay engaged with nature. It helped individuals general wellbeing who had to self-isolate during lockdown to stay connected with nature and was also their favourite animal. Check out the webcam here: https://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/webcams/panda-cam/

We’ve got much more planned for the job club in the next few months with more guest speakers and of course providing one-to-one support to anyone who wants or needs it.

If you would like to attend, job club takes place every Tuesday from 3-4pm via Google Meet. You can access this via this link: https://meet.google.com/kqo-vddh-cia