Welcome to our series, ‘Meet the charity’, where we meet charities from the Channel Islands. We find out what they are doing, how they are helping others and how we can help them succeed.
Today, we meet Charlotte Le Guilcher of the Accidental Zoo.
Tell us about your charity
The Accidental Zoo provides services that create a ripple effect of positive experiences to educate, inspire and support individuals living within the Bailiwick of Guernsey.
We have a unique set of resources being two acres of rural fields and a variety of farm animals, reptiles and invertebrates which are at the core of delivering our charitable purposes.
These resources facilitate two separate areas of work – one is centred on supporting adult health and wellbeing through our 12-week Wellbeing Matters programme and the other on supporting children’s education by delivering curriculum linked and topic specific workshops onsite as learning outside the classroom opportunities, or in-school.
Tell us about the charity’s ‘journey’
The Accidental Zoo started in 2019 simply as a social media blog to share the goings on and adventures of the animals with anyone who was interested. It very quickly became apparent that many people felt a connection with what we were doing and we came to realise that there were real needs within our island community that we could support through constructively engaging the animals and land.
Following two years of organic growth, this wave of public interest and professional support acted as a catalyst to registering The Accidental Zoo as a charity in February 2021 in order that we could formally commit to supporting children and adults within the Bailiwick and focus on delivering specific charitable goals.
A highlight since registering as a charity is that The Accidental Zoo has been shortlisted to the final three nominees for the Innovation Award at the 2021 Community Awards. We are delighted as the nomination recognises the original and inspiring ways in which The Accidental Zoo supports children to be the most successful learners they can be.
How do you make peoples lives better?
Each of our charity goals takes a different approach to make peoples’ lives better.
In supporting adult health and wellbeing, The Accidental Zoo has developed a 12-week programme called Wellbeing Matters.
Wellbeing Matters is a new and unique option for people who are looking to social prescribing as a means to feel better, rather than a solely a medical prescription.
People are signposted via their doctor to Wellbeing Matters and join a small group of like-minded people to spend time outdoors, making social connections, caring for the farm animals and being physically active. These are all ‘feel-good’ things in life which positively support people in their personal journey towards feeling a greater sense of confidence, purpose, self-esteem and overall wellbeing.
Through using up-close animal experiences within education, The Accidental Zoo enhances the way in which school children experience learning either in-school or on-site as a ‘Learning Outside the Classroom’ activity. The charity creates topic and year group specific, curriculum linked workshops to deliver on the learning outcomes that teachers desire and ‘bring learning alive’ for the Bailiwick’s pupils.
Over time The Accidental Zoo will contribute to young people being more successful learners, leading to greater aspirations and opportunities in life and, we anticipate, fewer mental health issues as they move towards adulthood.
Are you part of a bigger charity?
No, The Accidental Zoo is an independent local charity that is entirely dependent on its own fundraising initiatives and people’s generosity to enable it to deliver its charitable purposes.
Can you talk us through a typical working day for the team?
There is no ‘typical’ day when animals are involved!!
Two mornings a week Sarah, Jo and Caroline, our Health & Wellbeing Team Leaders run separate Wellbeing Matters programmes. The participants take care of feeding all the farm animals and other husbandry tasks during their visit.
On other days Ryan, who heads up our Operations team, checks, feeds and cleans all the animals with support from Claire.
During the mornings we also regularly welcome schools to The Accidental Zoo or take reptiles and invertebrates into classrooms to deliver curriculum linked workshops. Each day Ryan also keeps an eye on the humidity and temperature of reptiles’ and invertebrates’ vivariums, cleans them out, feeds and tops up their water, he typically has one or two larger scale site maintenance projects on the go as well.
Charlotte our CEO, spends most of her time strategy & event planning, creating fundraising initiatives, the development of the charity’s programmes, networking and talking with potential sponsors and stakeholders about the charity, taking care of all the office admin and everything else that is involved in running an organisation.
Do you work with government?
As a young charity of less than a year old, we are working hard to measure and build the evidence base around the impact our programmes have on peoples’ lives within our community.
Our Health & Wellbeing and Education programmes service needs and actions points identified within The Government Work Plan of the P&R Committee and the Bailiwick Big Picture Curriculum and we are hopeful that in time The Accidental Zoo will become recognised as a core community service provider in these areas.
Where is your funding from?
As a new charity in 2021 we have needed to be entirely self sufficient in fundraising this year. Notably, our ‘Lunch & Learn’ sessions where Ryan & Charlotte visit companies to present The Accidental Zoo and talk about our tiered sponsorship packages have been well received.
The family open days which welcomed around 8,000 people to The Accidental Zoo were our most significant fundraising initiative of the year.
We hosted a fantastic black tie ‘Jungle Ball’ at the OGH, we attended the North Show and seafront Sundays and we were successful in receiving two small grants to fund an education project.
People have individually been very generous in reaching out to make donations. We are now gearing up for our Christmas Tree Collection Service where we hope to raise around £6,000 collecting over 600 trees which will be 100% recycled at The Accidental Zoo.
How has Covid-19 impacted your charity?
The Accidental Zoo is fortunate to not have been impacted in a direct way by Covid-19. Rather, the need within our community for support through programmes such as Wellbeing Matters has increased.
The pandemic and lockdown have, for many people, created new or compounded existing challenges to experiencing positive mental health and wellbeing. It has however also helped to ‘normalise’ mental health and given people more confidence and a louder voice to seek support.
This is where Wellbeing Matters fits in as it provides a new opportunity for people to try and better their feelings of wellbeing and mental health through social and community connections as an alternative, or in combination with a medical prescription.
What’s been your biggest challenge as a charity?
There only being 24 hours in the day! Establishing the foundations and direction of an organisation, not least one with over 200 animals to care for and land to maintain, whilst raising the charity’s profile and building knowledge within the Bailiwick of the services we provide to support education and health & wellbeing, coupled with the continuous need to fundraise to enable the charity continue month on month,.
This, together with everything else that operating within the third sector entails has meant that our small team has been very, very busy indeed.
Can you share any pleasant experiences?
One thing that really stands out is peoples’ enthusiasm to happily volunteer their time and energy to support The Accidental Zoo’s fundraising initiatives.
In 2021 around 60 people gave over 750 hours of time to help raise vital funds needed to support the ongoing work of the charity. But it isn’t just about the money, these volunteers brought good spirit, humour, friendship, initiative and commitment to the often very physical work that we asked them to get involved in and they always stepped up to make the events a massive success.
Are you looking for volunteers?
Yes, we are looking for volunteers to join our Events Volunteer Team to be involved in our fundraising initiatives that typically run from May to September.
Adults of any age and ability are welcome as there is something for everyone! To find out more, contact Charlotte on [email protected]
Are you looking for donations? How can people donate?
We would greatly appreciate donations to further the work we do with children’s education, adult health & wellbeing and to feed and care for all the animals that are at the core of the services The Accidental Zoo provides.
Companies can also support our tiered sponsorship package or be the key or joint sponsors of specific education, health & wellbeing or community events that we organise each year.
To find out how to donate to or support The Accidental Zoo, please contact Charlotte on [email protected]
For more information about the Accidental Zoo:
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