International YRE Follow-up Competition
The Young Reporters for the Environment programme has been running for over 29 years, with thousands of young people having participated from around the world. Each year, high-quality articles, photographs, and videos created by Young Reporters are submitted to national YRE competitions. Winners are then entered into the International YRE Competition, where the most inspiring journalism pieces are selected. Many stories from Young Reporters reveal environmental challenges in their local communities, but it is the stories that offer solutions that stand out the most. But have these Young Reporters been able to make a change?
Earlier this year, we invited winners from the 2021 and 2022 International YRE Competition to share with us the impact their story had after it was disseminated and today we’re delighted to present the winners of this follow-up competition! We received nine entries from six different countries that highlighted the impact of the Young Reporters’ work. The exceptional pieces that were submitted to this follow-up competition demonstrate YRE participants’ ongoing drive and development.
Competition entries were reviewed by a jury made up of the YRE International team and the YRE representative on the Foundation for Environmental Education’s (FEE) Board of Directors. The jury evaluated the entries based on the themes they chose for their competition story, their analysis and how the situation changed thanks to their work as Young Reporters. The entries that were nominated and recognized this year show that YRE participants have a thorough awareness of local environmental challenges. They provided insightful and fascinating projects that showed both the environmental problems and the local solutions that have been produced.
Screenshot from the video "The Forgotten Duchess of the Adriatic"
“The Forgotten Duchess of the Adriatic"
The winning entry is a video by Diandra Kočan’s called "Zaboravljena knjeginja Jadrana" or “The Forgotten Duchess of the Adriatic" from Montenegro, on which four individuals worked. The winning team was originally motivated to join the YRE Competition because of the uniqueness of the competition and the fact that it was a way to make their voices heard, which is exactly what they did with their video.
"Diandra's work is a worthy recipient of this year's award for the very good and impactfully described story," said FEE Board Member, Sasha Karajovic. In their original entry, this group of four Young Reporters highlighted that the Bratica River, locally referred to as “the septic tank” flowed into the Port Milena. The Young Reporters explained that “It is Port Milena's biggest polluter. Wastewater and faeces from 1,200 residential buildings that do not have a sewage system were discharged into the Bratica River. As a result, an enormous amount of trash, chemicals and faeces give the water in Port Milena unpleasant colour and smell, while also taking away its title of a "home". With the living conditions, it presents sea creatures with, there is no foundation for surviving let alone thriving.”
Screenshot from the video "The Forgotten Duchess of the Adriatic"
Screenshot from the video "The Forgotten Duchess of the Adriatic"
Their video about the pollution in the Port of Milena caught the local media’s attention, and the students talked about their experience in the YRE Competition at their local TV station, which also shared their video. The students believed that what made their video impactful was that “we presented steps that have to be taken in order to resolve the problem, so what's up to them is to be open-minded, to change the budget priorities and to listen.” Their video urged “the government of our town, but also our country, to consider the situation of the canal, as a serious problem, and to then take action.”
““We presented steps that have to be taken in order to resolve the problem, so what’s up to them is to be open-minded, to change the budget priorities and to listen.””
"Saving Stray Animals Is the Hope of Saving the Environment"
We also have the pleasure of awarding an Honorable Mention to Nour Nabulsi from Israel, who wrote an article titled "Saving Stray Animals Is the Hope of Saving the Environment." In Nour's words, the biggest challenge was “choosing the problem that most affect the environment to shed light on it, as I collected dozens of problems, which I wished to publish as many as possible and start solving them together.” The impact of her article on her local community after it was published was significant. It increased awareness about stray animals and environmental problems and she began to take actions to address these challenges.
Stray Animals from Nour’s article
Stray Animals from Nour’s article
The YRE International team would like to congratulate these Young Reporters for the excellent work they have produced and for sharing the story of their impact through this follow-up competition. The effort to track what impact the YRE stories are making locally will be continued next year and hope to see how the YRE youth are gaining leadership skills that drive impactful and positive changes locally.
About Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE): Founded in 1994, the YRE programme empowers young people to research and report on local environmental issues and promote solutions through investigative reporting, photography, and video journalism, giving them a sense that they can really make a difference in the world.
About FEE: Established in 1981, the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) is one of the world's largest environmental education organisations, with over 100 member organisations in 81 countries. With 40 years of impactful experience in ESD, our new strategic plan - GAIA 20:30 - prioritises climate action across all five programmes to address the urgent threats of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental pollution.