What:

The Our Other Mother campaign was launched on Mother’s Day 2021 by parents’ groups and children’s illustrators, who are worried about climate change and want to push for a brighter, safer future for all our children.

We called on creatives – aged 5 to 95 – to produce a piece of art or a message (illustration, poem, story, photo or song) showing our love for mums and #OurOtherMother – planet earth.

We were delighted that iconic British illustrators Jim Field of Oi Frog! and Rebecca Cobb of Paper Dolls joined the campaign and engaged their networks. Other leading illustrators including Rob Biddulph, Lydia Monks and Emily Gravett also contributed to the campaign.

The campaign was launched by parent climate groups – Our Kids’ Climate, Parents For Future UK, Mother’s Rise Up – and illustrator networks, Kid Lit For Climate and EditArtz on UK Mother’s Day. It has since expanded and travelled the world. It has been embraced by climate parent groups in Australia, Brazil, Nigeria, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden and USA on their respective Mother’s Days. There are now over 1000 posts under the #OurOtherMother hashtag on Instagram.

To coincide with COP26, the Our Other Mother campaign left virtual world and entered the real one! Parent groups from all across the globe – Ghana, Slovakia, Germany, Spain to name just some – were empowered to put on Our Other Mother exhibitions in galleries and other community spaces. We even had an Our Other Mother exhibition at Silverburn Shopping Centre in Glasgow during the COP 26 climate talks – and handed out Our Other Mother postcards urging climate action to COP 26 delegates. Parents and children marching for climate action in Glasgow carried placards and banners emblazoned with art from the Our Other Mother campaign.

To join in:

Get creative! Celebrate #OurOtherMother (planet earth) through an illustration, image, poem, image or anything… Get those creative juices flowing!

Share It. Post on social media using the hashtag #OurOtherMother Tag us too, so we can see!

Spread the word. Tag people you think would like to be involved and create something celebrating #OurOtherMother.

Host an exhibition. Exhibition packs are now available! They are a creative and fun opportunity to bring people together and reflect about what we can all do to push for change on climate.

Why:

Decisions made on climate change by our leaders on climate will affect the chances our children have tomorrow. We are calling on world leaders to act to give all the world’s children the brightest possible future.

We want to show our leaders how much we care for our planet, #OurOtherMother. Our shared home, planet earth, is under threat and we all have a role to play in protecting it. So get involved and show your love for #OurOtherMother!

We have created an exhibition pack, making it super easy for groups of parents to put on Our Other Mother exhibitions in their own communities. There are plenty of hooks parents can tie an exhibition to – Earth Day, Mother’s Day, Environment Day! If you want to get hold of an exhibition pack and host an Our Other Mother exhibition please to get in touch at hello@ourkidsclimate.org

We have also created these colouring sheets together with illustrator Anita Bagdi making it easy for the very youngest of children to get involved! Click images to view and print or download high resolution images in a new window here: image 1, image 2, image 3, image 4, image 5, image 6, image 7, image 8.

Here’s to #OurOtherMother and celebrating the beauty and wonder of planet earth!