Hi, I’m Heloisa and I work for ENSA (Edinburgh Napier Students’ Association). I got involved with Hedgehog Friendly Campus because one of my main goals is to improve ecological sustainability at Edinburgh Napier. Protecting wildlife is one of the ways to do that!
The facts
The first event we organised to raise awareness about Hedgehogs - and to launch the creation of Hedgehog Friendly Campus Napier - was a baking competition. You might wonder what those two things have in common but I can say from personal experience that baking has something in common with anything. People like baking, because it’s fun (and 2020 lacked an awful amount of fun), it’s creative and you get to eat something tasty at the end! So if you want to raise awareness about a specific theme, a baking competition can work. Bake-offs are great because you can motivate yourself through some friendly competition and you get to try out new recipes. It’s also a good type of event that can be entirely virtual - and easy to promote on social media.
How did we help hedgehogs?
While promoting the bake-off we also encouraged participants to:
Donate to the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS)
The BHPS offers help and advice to those with sick, injured or orphaned hedgehogs and maintains a list of rehabilitators in the UK: donating ensures that the charity can continue to do a good job.
Follow our social media pages
Our social media includes useful information about how one can personally help protect hedgehogs so that we can all become more aware of what to do.
Get involved and join our team
Becoming part of Hedgehog Friendly Campus means that you’re helping hedgehogs hands-on by making Edinburgh Napier safer for hedgehogs and educating staff and students about hedgehog protection.
Doing all this as part of the bake-off helps get the message across in a more engaging and fun way!
The entries
We managed to get a good bunch of students involved and there is clearly some great creative talent out there. I can tell you that the Hedgehog cake I made myself wasn’t as majestic as these beauties here (but it was tasty anyway)!
Links
Want to donate to the British Hedgehog Preservation society? Here’s the link: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/hedgehog-friendly-campus-edinburgh-napier
Want to check out more photos from our baking competition? They are on our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hedgehogfriendlycampus_napier/