“If sustainable development is to be a reality, youth will be at the centre of the necessary transition. Today’s consumers, tomorrow’s decision makers – youth will define our success. The YRE winners represent some of these potential change makers.”
Christopher Slaney is a freelance journalist and television news producer with thirty-five years experience, much of it in the Middle East and Africa. He started out as a television news cameraman when stations shot film which needed processing in a lab, editing was a skill involving scissors and glue, and getting stories on air when satellites were still a novelty often meant finding airline crew who would carry a spool of film to London or Paris. In 1990 he covered the release of Nelson Mandela from prison as a live transmission and thus began a new career producing live coverage of major news events. Notable credits include the handover of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat returning to Gaza, US presidential elections and the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Since 1998 he has worked mainly for the Associated Press, the world's global news agency but still welcomes the chance to use a camera and was recently in northern Iraq for PBS filming a report on the Yazidi and Kurdish communities.
Anne Vela-Wagner is the Executive Director of the Mars Wrigley Foundation. She has deep experience in global strategy and partnership development and currently leads programming with partners in 20 countries around the world. In addition to a career in social impact, she has extensive corporate communications experience spanning content development, editorial, measurement and strategy. While leading the Foundation’s global partnerships, evaluation and overall management, she also leads the Mars Ambassador Program – a global, skills-based, volunteer program providing Mars Wrigley associates around the world the opportunity to use their business skills and passion to create positive social change. She has sat on numerous non-profit boards and committees and is currently part of a cross-sector task force to eliminate litter in the Chicago River. Anne holds a BA from the University of Illinois and a MSC from Northwestern University.
Sasha Karajovic has been a member of the non-governmental organization "ECOM – Environmental Consultancy of Montenegro" since 2001, and at the end of 2002 he became the coordinator of international projects in this NGO.
Sasha started Blue Flag in 2003 and YRE in 2008. The last two years he has been engaged in launching the Green Key programme. In addition, Sasha is executive director of ECOM.
Parallel to activities in the NGO, he is also a journalist - an associate of the local public radio service Kotor.
Sasha is working for ECOM on a fully volunteer base and in his professional life, as an expert, he has more than 25 years of experience in spatial and urban planning; environmental, nature and cultural heritage protection and coastal area management.
Sasha is also a multi-year consultant to ministries and several municipalities in Montenegro for the field of planning and environmental protection, as well as international organisations UNDP, GIZ and ERM.
Martina is by profession a dental technologist and a maxillofacial prosthetist; both fuelling her love of science and art. However, it was YRE that instilled this passion in her back in 2013, where together with a group of friends, she placed first nationally in the video category and had the privilege of attending the Sweden workshop with a group of international youth leaders. Since then, Martina has found a home in YRE; attending workshops and conferences organised by UNESCO (2018), COP24 (2018), YouthMundus (2019) and CollisionConf (2020). For a number of years she was the programme’s ambassador to her homecountry; Malta, heavily supported by the national coordinator Audrey Gauci.
In recent years, YRE has catalysed Martina’s journey into science communication, driving her to pursue endeavours such as working as a teacher and as an explainer – utilising skills attributable to YRE. This past year, she has been volunteering with Olio, an organisation she discovered during COP24 and which was set up to help limit food (and other household items) waste.
For Martina, YRE is the gift that keeps on giving, and she is grateful for all the opportunities provided along the way!
Bernard Combes supports UNESCO’s activities on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). He oversees the implementation of the ESD for 2030 priority action areas on Accelerating sustainable solutions at local level and on Empowering and mobilizing youth through capacity and partnership building in order to strengthen multi-stakeholder networks and improve the quality of local platforms for learning and cooperation. He is also the Education Sector focal point for biodiversity and UNESCO focal point for the Earth Charter, and among other things, works to reinforce cooperation with other agencies and stakeholders in regards to Communication, Education and Public Awareness in the areas of biodiversity, water, oceans, cities and sustainable lifestyles. This has focused on providing technical advice and support for capacity building activities, and developing learning, teaching and awareness ¬raising materials, in cooperation with other UNESCO programme sectors, other agencies (notably UNEP, UNU, CDB, FAO) and stakeholders (such as IUCN, WWF, youth groups, media and private sector).
Nick Nuttall is the International Strategic Communications Director of EARTHDAY.ORG and a Director at the climate social platform We Don’t Have Time. He has nearly 40 years of experience in environmental communications. He was the Environment Correspondent of The Times newspaper from 1989. In 2001 he joined the UN Environment Programme, becoming Director of Communications and Public Information/ Spokesperson/ Speechwriter to its Executive Director. Nick was also responsible for the organisation’s youth engagement. In 2014, he joined the UNFCCC as Communications Director and was the Spokesperson for the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015. Nick left the UN in 2018 to pursue a freelance communications career. Nick is among other things, also the chair of the jury of TVE’s Global Sustainability Film Awards; a backing singer for the Berlin-based Bernadette La Hengst band; passionate tennis player and a Burnley FC fan.
Cynthia Pugelj Marquez is the Director of Global Initiatives at the World Organization of the Scout Movement and oversees WOSM’s global educational initiatives on environment, peace, health, and leadership.
A lifelong Scout hailing from El Salvador, Cynthia left her mark on the global Scout Movement by growing the Messengers of Peace network and community, activating millions of Scouts to take action to have a positive impact in their local communities.
Under Cynthia’s leadership and together with volunteers from the Scouting community, WOSM’s Earth Tribe initiative has been adopted in almost 100 countries with the support of partners like FEE.
Mark Terry is the Executive Director of the Youth Climate Report, a partner program of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and this year’s winner of a Sustainable Development Action Award.
Mark teaches in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University in Toronto, Canada, and is a Research Fellow at the Dahdeleh Institute for Global Health Research at York where he leads an environmental filmmaking workshop called the Planetary Health Film Lab. As an Associate to the UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Education towards Sustainability, Mark continues to develop new experiential education programs aimed at incorporating the Sustainable Development Goals into curricula and extra-curricular activities such as the Plastic Pick-up Challenge.
Mark is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the country’s highest academy. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and The Explorers Club. He has spent much of his career documenting scientific research in the field as a filmmaker and is perhaps best known for his trilogy of polar documentaries The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning (2009), The Polar Explorer (2010), and The Changing Face of Iceland (2021).
His work with the United Nations has been recognized with decorations from Queen Elizabeth II (Diamond Jubilee Medal for international humanitarian service), The Explorers’ Club (Stefansson Medal, the Canadian chapter’s highest honor), and the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television (Gemini Humanitarian Award).
P.J. Marcellino (Pedro, within YRE circles) is an award-winning Lisbon-born and Toronto-based film producer, director, and writer. Pedro's involvement with YRE started in 1995, as one of the first-ever students to participate in an international mission (Mission Antarctica). He later mentored students in Mission Azores and Mission Algarve, hosted by YRE Portugal. Over the last decade, he has collaborated with FEE and YRE in various events, and has produced the new YRE video tutorials and handbooks.
Pedro started his journalistic career at YRE and as a reporter in his school paper. His first-ever cover story was about environmental depredation by oil companies in the Niger Delta, and about the activist, writer, and TV personality Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed in 1995, along with eight other leaders. Pedro was later an environmental journalist in Portugal, a photo-reporter in Germany, and then an international correspondent and editor with a leading Chinese magazine, where he wrote about urban planning, sustainability, and the politics of urban space.
A graduate in International Relations (BA), International Politics (BScEcon) and International Development (MA), he worked around the world with governments and institutions such as the UN, the African Union (where he was Head of Communications at the Peace & Security Department), the EU, and the International Organization for Migration,mostly migration, security, and sustainable development. In 2012, Pedro went back to school at the Documentary Filmmaking Institute in Toronto. His first film, After the War: Memoirs of Exile (2014) was nominated for a SAMHSA Voice Award, a White House initiative for mental health on screen. His debut feature, When They Awake (2017) dealt with music as political engagement, Indigenous and environmental rights, and was shown in over 30 countries, achieving a dozen awards and nominations, including the Rigoberta Menchú Social Award in Montreal.
He is currently producing various feature documentaries, a feature film and his first narrative TV series, Black Mangrove: the Wiwa Story (2021), in which he returns to the same story he started with. bringing environmental, human rights, and geopolitical issues to a large worldwide audience. Pedro is a full-time filmmaker and remains closely involved with YRE.