YRE International is happy to open the week of YRE Global Action Days with a brand new YRE promotional video.
The video is to share the joy of the programme with everyone and especially with YOU, the Young Reporters and the potential Young Reporters around the world!
Enjoy!!
It is once again time for Young Reporters around the world to get your voices heard!
The Global Action Days is a call for all students and teachers around the world to be active and share their actions on being more sustainable in our modern world.
Be creative and use your skills to deliver your opinions and thoughts in the best possible way! Please register yourself on Global Action Days website and share your action and stories on our Global Action Days Facebook page.
YRE programme has been recognised by UNESCO Green Citizen project as one of the best practices toward sustainable future, together with all other FEE programmes!
UNESCO 'Green Citizens' aims to show leaders, farmers, workers and the parents of tomorrow how crucial sustainable development is for the future of our societies. It is ultimately a communication platform, which highlights different success stories from around the world.
As part of our partnership with UNESCO, FEE has been asked to provide the Green Citizens project with information on the organisation and its programmes, good practices from National Operators, and information on the awards related to FEE.
Please check out the website for more information!
Young Reporters for the Environment
Other FEE programmes
YRE International competition is open to youth aged 11-21 in countries running the YRE programme. The competition is held annually to recognise the great work being done by motivated Young Reporters around the world. This year, the International Jury meeting will be held on 26 May at Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) Head Office in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Jury consists of representatives from various international organisations. The result will be announced no later than 5 June, and the winners will receive recognition and prizes.
The Competition includes the winners of the YRE National Competitions. Students participating in the YRE programme in each country have the right to participate in the National Competition. Students that enter and are selected as the national winners are put forward to the International Competition. Please contact the YRE National Operator in your country for more information on YRE National Competition.
Our Young Reporters for the Environment National Operators Meeting (NOM) is taking place very soon! This year we are gathering in Glasgow, Scotland on 26-28 February.
The meeting will be hosted by Keep Scotland Beautiful, FEE member organisation in Scotland. Thanks to their great effort, everything is in place and we are looking forward to another fantastic and productive NOM, this year.
National Operators from 22 YRE countries will participate, as well as guests and speakers from various organisations, from various countries. We are also expecting engagement of young people from Scotland, which will be a wonderful addition to our meeting.
We are all excited and really looking forward to seeing you all again for another fruitful NOM!!
YRE International is inviting Young Reporters around the world to an online meet-up event for the first time!
This event is going to be organised to mark YRE's new initiative, Global Action Days. The Global Action Days is a call for all students and teachers around the world to be active and share their actions on being more sustainable in our modern world. More information can be found here.
As for the very first guest, we will invite Dr. Ayşe Asatekin, who is a former Young Reporter from 1996 and 1997. She went on a YRE Mission to Rochefort, France in 1996 to see their wastewater treatment system that also serves as a wildlife refuge and to The Reunion in 1997 to learn about microwave energy transfer. She is happy to meet with Young Reporters around the world and speak about her experience through YRE programme.
She studied Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, graduated valedictorian. She received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and pursued post-doctoral research at MIT. Her research has focused on water treatment throughout her career. She co-founded a small company for commercializing new water filters she developed in her Ph.D., called Clean Membranes, currently operating near Boston. She returned to academia and is now an assistant professor at Tufts University in the Medford, MA, USA near Boston. She is excited to talk to her students about the water treatment facility in Reunion that was a bird preserve, and about clean energy sent from the orbit by microwaves. She and her research group are working on developing new membrane technologies for water treatment and energy-efficient chemical manufacturing. She admits that the YRE experience definitely made a big difference in her trajectory.
YRE International will also invite Young Reporters to be interviewers to Ayşe. If you are a Young Reporter interested participating in the event as an interviewer, read the "call for application".
YRE International is planning to host a series of online meet-up events inviting different guests from YRE network.
This year the International YRE Competition has a few significant changes. The criteria of the competition has been revised and we hope that more students will be encouraged to participate and be active on their local level. And for the first time we launch the new Category International Collaboration – Sustainable Production and Consumption (SCP), including Sustainable Lifestyles.
YRE international competition is for winners of YRE National Competition in country running YRE programme. Students who are participating in the YRE programme in each country has a right to participate in the competition. Students have to compete and be selected as national winner to be sent to international competition.
The competition is open to those aged 11-21 whether participating alone or through their school, college, university or youth group. In order to participate in the international competition, you will need to be selected as 1st-3rd winner in either of media categories (article, photograph, video) in the national competition. You can find out if your country is running YRE programme here, and contact your national delegate organisation for participation.
More information about the competition (criteria, category, etc.) can be found here.
This year we are introducing also a new Category International Collaboration – Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP), including Sustainable Lifestyles. This category is open to countries that decide to collaborate (school classes/individuals), and exchange information to prepare one joint article that will be submitted to the competition as a joint effort. It is open for students aged 15-18.
More information about the new Category can be found here.
Participants can join YRE at any time of the year but submissions to the international competition must be received by 30 April 2016. National competitions are usually held by the end of March. Countries that cannot run their jury prior to that may submit students' work to the following year’s international competition. Submissions can only be entered once ever and in one age category. Late submissions to the international competition will not be accepted. The international jury will meet in May. Results are announced on, or no later than, World Environment Day, June 5.
Join the YRE network and participate in the International YRE competition!
Nine passionate Young Reporters participated in the World Environmental Education Congress (WEEC) 2015 held in Gothenburg, Sweden from 29 June to 2 July. They played an important role at the congress by reporting on sessions and plenaries from their youth perspectives.
Their major task was to take on one or two conference themes and follow the sessions throughout the 4-day congress. The sessions were in style of symposium, round-table discussion, oral presentation, and workshop, and each or a group of students sit in the room and follow the presentations and discussions by the experts around the world, then to present a report or an article on the session. They also covered plenary sessions and moreover, they had a chance to interview Mr. Alexander Leicht from UNESCO on the last day of the congress.
YRE International is grateful for the congress organiser for giving us this wonderful opportunity for the students and aiming to have more chances to have this kind of opportunities at other occasions in the future.
All their articles and the interview movie are available on YRE International Exposure site.
https://yreint.exposure.co/
World Environmental Education Congress 2015
http://weec2015.org/
2015 YRE winners have been selected by representatives from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), International Institute for Industrial and Environmental Economics (IIEEE), Wrigley Company Foundation, International journalist, YRE Student (1996), communications strategist, writer, filmmaker (Longyearbyen Consulting & Media) and the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE). Seven articles, six photographs and eight videos were awarded to young environmental journalists from twenty-four countries.
“If sustainable development is to be a reality, youth will be at the centre of the needed transition. Today’s consumers, tomorrow’s decision makers – youth will define our success. The YRE winners represent some of these potential change makers. Through their words, photos and videos we see how change can be inspired. Congratulations to the winners and in fact to all entrants. We need to harness your energy and find more for the challenges ahead!” - Garrette Clark, Sustainable Lifestyles Cities and Industry Branch, UNEP.
Julie Saito from UNESCO added: “Many of the entries this year stood out in approaches which dig into the familiar theme in drawing attention to environmental issues.”
YRE international competition is open for countries running the YRE programme and the participating students. To begin, students compete at a national level, the winners are then put forward to the international competition. Whether participating as an individual or through a school, college, university or youth group, the competition is open to students ages 11-21. The YRE programme and competition is run by the Foundation for Environmental Education national member organisations.
Judges at the international level select a winning article (up to 1,000 words), photograph or photographic essay (up to 12 photographs) and video (up to 3 minutes) in each of three age categories (11-14; 15-18; and 19-21). The Jury is at liberty not to award in the case of too few submissions and to give more than one award in the case of exceptional entries in one or more age categories.
3,910 entries were made at a national level from twenty-four countries. From this, the Jury received 120 entries, which were winners on a national level. Thursday 28, the international winners were selected, 43 articles, a photo and 34 videos.
All winners will be awarded a certificate and given a prize of some hi-tech equipment.
Awarded submissions can be found here.
YRE International is very happy to announce that work on the international YRE Handbook for Students & Educators has been successfully finalised.
The Handbook consists of an introductory section about YRE, a section for students about how to participate in the programme with top tips about writing articles, taking photos, and producing videos. The examples of entries with comments from our expert are included, as well as video tutorials. In the section for educators, information about incorporating the programme to the school curricula, knowledge from YRE countries, and sample activities for YRE methodology are presented. The final section of the Handbook has information about the YRE competition with all rules and the evaluation process.
For Young Reporters for the Environment Handbook for students & educators click here.
Video tutorials:
YRE Photography 101: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U91Ahk7dXKg
YRE Article 101: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf-Z8XGAd9c
YRE Video 101: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTT_TZpeNCw
I would like to say a special thank you to Pedro Marcellino for his work on it and to the YRE students that were involved in the preparation of the video tutorials. Hope you enjoy the material!
