Lecturer, researcher, poet and outdoor enthusiast Victoria Ekpo looks back on the first year of FootstepsNW, the walking and activity group she founded for Black women and their friends in the north west.

It was important that our group expanded to include others, like the environment does for us daily, and that this generosity be replicated in our activities and relationships. Our friends include spouses, friends, other walking groups and enthusiasts and we learn a lot from these interactions.

We joined up with CPRE Lancashire and members of the Ramblers Association to explore Preston’s parks, architecture and green belt and took some new friends along the historic Edges of Hope Valley and the Goyt River.

On a whim, we signed up to the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge and completed it and went camping for the first time as a group – the first time ever for many of our members and their friends.

Read the article in full: https://www.cpre.org.uk/stories/a-poetic-reverie-reflections-on-a-year-spent-getting-closer-to-nature/