Our annual Young Reporters for the Environment International Competition is without a doubt one of the highlights of the YRE programme! Every year, the most inspiring and creative entries from the National Competitions are assessed by an International Jury and have the chance to be recognized globally. In the 2021/2022 YRE competition alone, we had 430,176 students from 43 countries involved, and 5.6 million people got reached by the “voice” of all the amazing Young Reporters.
The YRE International Competition is for the YRE National Competition winners in countries running the YRE programme. Students who are participating in the YRE programme in each country and students from International Schools in countries where the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) has no member have a right to participate in the competition. Students must compete and be selected as the 1st place national winner before being submitted to the International Competition by National Operators.
For next year’s 2022/23 International Competition, we’ve cleaned up and clarified past years’ competition criteria to make them as clear and strong as possible. But don’t worry, things haven’t changed too much!
There are still four categories: article, photograph, video, and international collaboration. Within photographs, there’s the single reportage photo, the single environmental campaign photo, and a photo story of 3-5 images. The video category is divided into a reportage video and an environmental campaign video.
YRE works to actively promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and present case stories of initiatives that are developed by local communities and emphasize a holistic approach to achieving sustainable development for all. Therefore, we encourage participants to reflect on the link between their entry and one or more SDGs when choosing a topic to report on.
Following the alarming need for urgent action, YRE International recommends that students investigate local environmental issues linked to the following three themes:
• Climate Change
• Biodiversity Loss
• Environmental Pollution
The highlight of the 2022/2023 competition is Environmental Pollution. During this year we will be sharing additional educational resources related to the theme of pollution.
The assessment criteria are divided into five categories: Format & Structure, Honest & Unbiased Reporting, Constructive & Well-Rounded Perspective, Originality & Independence, and Dissemination.
In the category of “Dissemination,” YRE encourages youth to use their voice to bring positive change, and actively sharing one’s work within different communities and networks is key to making an impact. For this reason, the dissemination criteria have been emphasized and restructured in a way that’s hopefully clear and easy to follow.
Submission requirements and assessment criteria can be found on the YRE International website at YRE Competition — Young Reporters for the Environment. Most national YRE competitions follow a similar structure to the YRE International Competition, so make sure to take a look and familiarize yourself with the criteria! We look forward to seeing you in the YRE International Competition 2022/2023!
“Participating in the competition has made me more aware of what is happening in my community, more sensitive to my surroundings and being active, just like thousands of students around the world, which gives me hope that we can do things locally better. You can also gain valuable experience, same as me, which led me to take a role as one of the jury members and stand on the other side of the competition but still being active as a professional journalist.”
-- Adriana Hencekova, YRE Alumni from Slovakia and the YRE international jury member
We have hosted a press release webinar on the YRE international competition 2022/2023, you can find more information from it. To watch the recorded webinar, please click here.
About Young Reporters for Environment
Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE) is an award-winning programme coordinated by Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE). The programme empowers young people to take an educated stand on environmental issues they feel strongly about and gives them a platform to articulate these issues through the media of writing, photography, or video.
About the Foundation for Environmental Education
The Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) is one of the world’s largest Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) organisations, with over 100 member organisations in 81 countries. With a network of over 60,000 educational institutions, the Eco-Schools, Learning About Forests and Young Reporters for the Environment programmes empower young people to create an environmentally conscious world through experiential, project-based learning. Our Green Key and Blue Flag programmes are globally recognized for promoting sustainable business practices and the protection of natural resources. With over 40 years of impactful experience in ESD, FEE’s strategic plan, GAIA 20:30, prioritises impactful action across all five programmes to address the threats of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental pollution.