Write your best climate change story and get an opportunity to join and cover COP21
While climate change is a global phenomenon, it is hitting the world’s poorest regions – and most marginalized communities – the hardest. These changing conditions are impacting human health, economic activity, and are threatening basic human rights including access to water and food security. Climate change is already affecting local communities in low and middle income countries but stories on the negative impacts as well as on the solutions that governments, communities and individuals are implementing often get lost in the global climate change debate.
UNDP story telling contest on climate change aims to contribute to raising public awareness on the negative impacts of climate change on people and communities as well as on the opportunities and solutions seen in actions by individuals and governments in vulnerable developing countries.
The contest provides young journalists in developing countries a unique opportunity to contribute to the global debate on climate change in the run-up to COP21, while building their capacity, and providing recognition for excellence. Authors of the top two stories will be funded to attend and cover COP21.
Target Group
We target journalists 35 years of age and under from developing countries vulnerable to the impact of climate change who:
- Are already engaged in public writing through an official media outlet
- Have a strong interest in reporting on climate change as a contribution – locally and internationally – towards greater public awareness on this critical global topic
- Are eager to seize an opportunity to build their journalistic capacity and contribute to COP21
Timeline of the Campaign
The contest was launched on August 27th. The deadline to submit an entry is October 11th 2015, with early submission encouraged. Following selection, different stories will be published every day from 2nd to 29th November. The two winning journalists will cover the climate conference in Paris.
Dissemination
Stories, once screened, scored and published on UNDP’s website, will be disseminated through partners’ channels to ensure maximum outreach and exposure. A common hashtag – #Voices2Paris – will facilitate social media integration by all partners, helping to amplify the dissemination. All materials are creative commons, encouraging further media outlets and people everywhere to make maximum use of the stories told and photos gathered.
