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At the Eco-Unesco Young Environmentalist Awards 2016 in Dublin today, overall senior winners, Presentation Secondary School, Tralee. From left to right; Emma Sheehy, Sarah Buckley, Mary Fitzpatrick, Nora O’Connell, Erika O’Sullivan and Rachael McCarthy. Photo: Tommy Clancy
STUDENTS from Tralee and around the country are being invited to register to take part in the ECO-UNESCO Young Environmentalist Awards 2017.
Tralee students have a good record in the competition. Just last year, Presentation Tralee Transition Year Science students won three prizes including the Senior Waste category and Overall Senior Prize for the ‘If Your Dog Poops, You Scoop’ project and ‘Out With Japanese Knotweed’ in the Senior Biodiversity category, while Mercy Mounthawk students were also winners in the Best Raising Awareness category with their H2Woah! project and teacher Shane Kissane won Eco-Leader Award.
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Now in its 18th year, the Young Environmentalist Awards (YEA) is open to young people aged 10-18 years old across the island of Ireland who are passionate and want to take action to protect the environment.
This exciting programme sees groups from schools, youth and community organisations come up with real solutions to a host of environmental issues, often benefitting their schools, communities and having impact on global environmental issues. The online portal is now open for groups to register their project at http://www.ecounesco.ie/register-now.
Last year, over 4,000 young people entered Ireland’s biggest celebration of youth ECO-action. There were hundreds of project entries that were shortlisted to just 80 finalists following the very competitive semi-final ECO-Dens that took place in each province.
Having impressed the expert judging panel with projects ranging from creating and selling organic and eco-friendly beauty products, to delivering environmental workshops in schools, to building community gardens, to lobbying politicians for change; the 80 groups went on to attend the prestigious Young Environmental Awards Showcase and Awards Ceremony in May at the Mansion House in Dublin.
A ‘YEA Road Show’ will be travelling around towns and villages across Ireland to inspire young people to start their very own eco-action projects. This YEA regional training will provide young people, their teachers and youth leaders with the skills and know-how to transform their ideas into real life action projects. The training will be provided to all registered groups free of charge from October to November.
Participants can submit their project in one of ten categories that include Climate Change, Biodiversity, Energy, Waste, Community Development and Art and Design. Once registered, entrants have until the end of February 2017 to complete their project, before entering the heat of the ECO-Dens in March-April to pitch their project to the judges for a coveted place in the prestigious Final in May.
Teachers and youth leaders can register groups of 2-25 young people by visiting www.ecounesco.ie or by contacting ECO-UNESCO at +353 1 6625491 or yea@ecounesco.ie.
