KUCHING, Aug 6: The Kuching Beach Cleaners and Sarawak Eco-Warriors are inviting young Malaysian writers from the age of 13 to 24 years old to take part in the “Green Microfiction Challenge: empowering youth through writing”, a creative writing competition that encourages young writers to think critically about key environmental themes.
Pro vice-chancellor and chief executive officer of Swinburne University of Technology, Sarawak Campus, Professor Lau Hieng Ho said, it is exciting for Swinburne Sarawak to be part of the Green Microfiction Challenge.
“We heartily embrace this initiative to encourage young people to think about pressing wildlife and environmental conservation issues and to express themselves creatively in writing,” he said in a statement (Aug 4).
According to Lau, the world today is facing unprecedented challenges and it is important for the youth to think critically about these issues.
“Linked to every aspect of our lives, conservation is an issue that is crucial for us to understand. We welcome young people to write about conservation issues creatively in short stories that we hope will engage others in every generation,” he added.
Meanwhile, a participant of the Young Green Leaders (YGL) programme, Sharon Wong, opined the youths of today are a generation of digital natives that are masters of communication.
“So I truly believe that, through the power of words and writing, we can slowly but surely craft a path towards a greener future,” she said.
In Dec 2020, the Kuching Beach Cleaners and Sarawak Eco-Warriors received a grant of USD20,000 (RM81,800) from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme under the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to empower and integrate youths into environmental conservation.
Sponsored by a United Nations Development Programme grant, the “Green Microfiction Challenge: empowering youth through writing” will be launched by the Kuching Beach Cleaners and Sarawak Eco-Warriors.
The programme consists of three components, the first of which is to provide opportunities for youths to directly engage in environmental conservation through activities like clean-up programmes or participate in community gardens.
The second aim is to increase knowledge and capacity through training and virtual programmes such as the Greenbinar series which are public webinars held every month and the Young Green Leaders (YGL) programme, which is a four-month training programme that focuses on providing youths with capacity building opportunities and to develop their network to meeting and learning from people in the environmental conservation world.
Finally, the third component of the programme is to compile and highlight the efforts and values of youths towards the environment with programmes such as the Green Microfiction Challenge.
It is hoped that young people throughout the country will be inspired by the one-word prompts and challenge themselves to write original and exciting short stories all with an underlying conservation theme.
This unique English creative writing competition will run from Aug 9 until Aug 21, 2021, and through the collaborative efforts of the Kuching Beach Cleaners, Sarawak Eco-Warriors, Swinburne University of Technology, Sarawak Campus and the Swinburne Sarawak Green Club, the competition prioritises youth engagement following a youth-based and youth-led orientation.
Aspiring writers can participate in any one of three age categories: 13 to 15 years old, 16 to 19 years old, and 20 to 24 years old. Participants are required to write and submit a 500-word story within 24 hours of the prompt release.
These single-word prompts will be released at 9am on challenge days which are on Aug 9, 11, 13, 16, and 18, 2021. More details on the challenge can be found at https://www.kuchingyounggreen.
— DayakDaily
