Young Naturalist Fund
The Cameron Bespolka Trust is pleased to present the Young Naturalist Fund. This fund provides monetary and personal support for young people who are working on (or have an idea for) a project that will benefit nature.
We are passionate about helping young people to kickstart their wild careers and we want to help you to engage others with the natural world. Your project can be anything – big or small! We simply want to support you with advice and funding to make your project the best that it can be, turning a seed of an idea into a giant flower.
To apply for the Young Naturalist Fund, all you have to do is fill out the form on our website explaining who you are, what your project is and why you need funding. We will get back to you as soon as possible. Don’t worry if your project is not fully fleshed out yet, we can help you with that too – a general idea of what you would like to do will suffice, although the more detail the better!
Our hope is that, during your project and once it is complete, you will send us a few updates along the way and give a shout out to the Trust –- sharing the fund with other young people who could use our help and support.
We can’t wait to hear from you!
Some ideas for a project
- Creating a wildlife garden at school.
- Installing a nestbox/birdbox.
- Buying bird feeders.
- Making a bug hotel or hedgehog house.
- Buying equipment for a wildlife club at school.
- Writing a nature book.
- Beach clean-up.
- Equipment for a wildlife club at school.
- Fieldwork equipment for a trip.
If you have any further questions about the Young Naturalist Fund please get in touch with Andrew Millham andrew@cameronbespolka.com.
Projects approved for funding
March 2023
Bird observatory warden training week
Bangor University Birdwatching Society are offering 10 members a Bird Observatory Training week at Bardsey …
March 2023
A collection of illustrated nature poems
Britain is a diverse tapestry, comprised of colourful plants, animals, fungi, and everything in-between which …
March 2023
Bird ringing equipment
Izzy is a 17 year old trainee bird ringer hoping to go for her C-permit this summer. She is looking to start …
October 2022
Saw Horse for School
The Youth Naturalist Fund kindly helped me to purchase this sawhorse for my forest school site, allowing the …
June 2022
70 Nest Boxes for 70 Years
In celebration of the 2022 Platinum Jubilee I created this project for 70 schools in the 32 London boroughs …
Amy and Andrew
Meet our two young Board Trustees, Amy Hall and Andrew Millham. They will be overseeing the Young Naturalist Fund and guiding fund applicants through the process, answering any questions they might have
Amy Hall
Amy is a zoologist who is currently travelling in Aotearoa New Zealand for a year, exploring the fantastic wildlife the islands host and developing content creation skills. She has been involved with the Cameron Bespolka Trust since 2016 when she received the Cameron Bespolka Trust Scholarship to visit the Cornell lab of Ornithology. In the 6 years following her visit to Cornell Amy has been a young ambassador and in 2020 became a Trustee, helping to develop the support that the Cameron Bespolka Trust offers to young naturalists.
Alongside Andrew, Amy is a point of contact for young naturalists to get in touch with the Cameron Bespolka Trust with ideas for the Young Naturalist Fund. She looks forward to meeting and working with fantastic young naturalists to boost the Trust’s mission to engage young people with wildlife. You can also find Amy @amyhall_wildlife on Instagram, and ‘Amy Hall Wildlife’ on YouTube!
Andrew Millham
Andrew is a nature writer, forest school leader and Essex Wildlife Trust Ambassador. He has written for BBC Wildlife, Coast, and writes regular columns in Essex Life and The Countryman.
During his forest school sessions, he works outside with children and young people to engage them with wildlife and show them the inherent value of the natural world. He agrees wholeheartedly with our motto: 'children need nature and nature needs children'.
Fund application
If you would like to apply for funding please complete our application form