August 2014
Youth
St Mary’s College, Wellington, students were successful in this year’s Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE) and Wrigley Company Foundation’s Litter Less campaign in writing, photography and videography categories.
Young New Zealand environmental enthusiasts were invited to take part in the competition.
Winners were announced on World Environment Day, 5 June, by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE).
The competition is open to students aged 11 to 21 to report on an environmental issue or problem in their community through print, photography or video, individually or as a group. Winning submissions at the national level can be submitted to the international competition.
This is the first year New Zealand has participated in this event, which received more than 155 international submissions.
Paolo Santalucia from Associated Press said, ‘The YRE and Litter Less awards are giving a crucial contribution in the education of new active citizens and unite efforts of public education and foundations such as FEE. Some of the works were real and courageous pieces of investigative journalism.’
St Mary’s achieved significant success in the following categories.
- Print articles in age group 11–14 years: 1st, ‘Wanna Know How I Got These Scars?’ by Meg Henderson; 2nd equal, ‘The Development of Awareness within Society’ by Kia Jewell.
- Photography in age group 15–18 years: 1st, ‘The Truth About Our Generation’ by Sudha Kandarpa, Billie McGuinness and Lizzy Gaiduch; 2nd, ‘It Could be a Pretty Walk to Paradise if We Stopped Littering’ by Georgia Trass.
- Meg Henderson and Lizzy Gaiduch have won a trip to Cypress to attend an international workshop later this year.
- Video in age group 15–18 years: 2nd, ‘Litter Less for a Better future’ by Katie O’Hagan.
- Video in age group 11–14 years: 2nd, ‘Reusable Drink Bottles’ by Ellie Grigg, Rebecca Chetcuti, Karen Villareal, Niamh Hambleton, and Jade Curran.