Win A Date With History; Be a judge

If you had 2 minutes to tell the world what kind of future you want, what would you say?

 

Throughout history, young people have been the drivers of change, often standing up for what’s right in direct opposition to the established norm. From organized struggles for democracy and civil liberties, to peaceful protests calling for new economic ideals, youth voices have transformed the socio-political landscape of the 21st century. Now, with the future of life on Earth at stake, the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development calls out for young people across the world to lead the charge – its time to make your date with history! In June world leaders will gather to discuss some of the most pressing problems we face at the Rio +20 Earth Summit and you can make an impact at this historic moment, inspiring decisive and urgent action, simply by telling the world what kind of future you want. It all starts with a powerful two-minute video speech.

 

Date With History is a competition but it is also much more than that. This is an awareness raising and engagement opportunity to tell new audiences about what is happening at Rio and to reach out to schools, colleges, universities, workplaces and communities and get them involved.

 

There are three main ways you as a young person can get involved :

 

1. Enter “Win A Date With History”

Enter the competition online by uploading a video of your two-minute speech and make sure you get your friends, family and contacts to vote for it. The competition is completely open to anyone between the ages of 13 and 30 – and the website is in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. To enter, simply visit www.datewithhistory.com and follow the simple steps to upload(different languages can be found at the top right of the webpage).

 

All of the most popular videos will be used to influence decision-makers, and the ultimate winner will be able to come to Brazil, fully accredited with the Global Campaign for Climate Action (www.tcktcktck.org) and have the chance to deliver their speech in person and be part of events at the Rio +20 Earth Summit this June! What are you waiting for? Get started today!

 

2. Apply to be a Judge for the contest 

Entering the competition not your thing and think you have a pretty good grasp on what young people should be calling for at Rio. Then we need you! We’re looking for our judging panel to have an overwhelming number of clued up young people on it so we make sure we pick a winner who really does speak with the voice of our generation. If you would like to be part of this panel then just send a paragraph about yourself to tcktcktck’s Youth Coordinator Anna Collins (anna.collins@tcktcktck.org) by April 5th.

 

3. Promote the contest far and wide

We have a real chance to get a youth voice for Rio+20 into the public domain as this competition will reach beyond our usual networks to a wider selection of youth, we already have partners like MTV Act and MusicforRelief on board, but we need your help too!

 

If you can email the link to the competition (www.datewithhistory.com) to your networks, members and any email lists where you think this would have traction that would be greatly appreciated. Also, you can Tweet about the competition (- Date With Historyhttp://bit.ly/ADBIRN) or write a Facebook post promoting it. I have also attached the embed codes for the widget which you can place on your website (please note the whole code has to be copied across for the button to work properly – let me know if you have any problems).

 

Toolkit 

The toolkit will also have additional materials and resources that can help you and should you require any assistance with any of your promotion please do contact me as there are staff at the Global Campaign for Climate Action who can assist you with any marketing and promotion.

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Commonwealth Youth Awards 2012: Nomination open!

Nominations for the Commonwealth Youth Awards for Excellence in Development Work are now open.

Commonwealth calls for entries that recognise young people whose commitment to development work within a Commonwealth country has made a difference to the lives of others.

In return, nominees will get a chance to win international recognition and support for their development project.

Designed to help celebrate the role of young people as nation builders and partners in development, the Awards offer young people under 30 an opportunity to share their contribution and inspire others to get involved.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma said: “More than any generation in history, the youth of today are shaping our social, economic and political landscape. These awards recognise their contribution in our 54 Commonwealth member states”.

The Commonwealth Youth Awards were launched on Commonwealth Day, 12 March 2012.

Deputy Secretary-General Masire-Mwamba, Mmasekgoa who oversees youth development at the Commonwealth Secretariat said: “Young people represent more than 50% of Commonwealth citizens. I have seen the excellent contribution they are making at community and national levels all across our countries. I welcome these Awards as an opportunity to tell their positive stories that often go unnoticed.”

Five Awards will be given regionally with the top entrant from each region receiving a Pan-Commonwealth Award.

Nominations opened on March 12, 2012 and will run until 31 July 2012.

The Awards are aimed at young people between the ages of 15-29 years. Entrants must be citizens of a Commonwealth country and working in a Commonwealth country.

All entries should be submitted via the link:http://www.yourcommonwealth.org/cya. Further information about the Awards can be found by downloading the Commonwealth Youth Awards brochure

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Apply: Activista Nigeria ‘Organising for Change’ Training

Closing date for this application is 9th April 2012.

Click here to download the application form.

The ‘Organising for Change’ Training is an annual training established by ActionAid Activista Nigeria to build a core of young people who are able to inspire, lead and mobilize other young people to take action towards ending poverty in Nigeria and contributing  significantly to the eradication of poverty in the world.
Activista Nigeria recognises the potential in creating change through a combination of the right skills, consciousnesses and creative energy of young people. It seeks to harness this by broadening the skills base for organising, a rights consciousness imbedded in ActionAid’s Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA) to work and a practical approach to coalescing pockets of youth engagement into a broad platform for taking action.

Activista Nigeria sees a great potential in training a higher number of young activists from  ActionAid Local Rights constituency and young people from surrounding movements, social struggles and other environments such as universities or other forums with a potential for mobilising young people through training and education.

This is to facilitate a fusion of methods that embraces ActionAid’s methodologies such as REFLECT inspired by the Paolo Freire philosophy, popular traditional organising and emerging trends inspired by the new dynamic social media platform.

The Activista Nigeria training aligns in a context specific perspective to the Global Change educational approaches and overall strategy of ActionAid.

Purpose of the Training
• Strengthen the work for social change already being carried out by the participants  and their organisations, creating experienced, enthusiastic and confident drivers of
change.
• To build up skills in organising, analysing and communicating to carry out large scale and local campaigns for social change.

Methods
• Public Action Learning & co-creation
• Tools based training
• Combination of lectures, reading, peer to peer and work groups

Eligibility:
• Activista is a youth based organising platform, to be eligible for this training you must be between ages of 16-30
• You must be able to communicate effectively in written and spoken English
• You must have a local group where you can apply the skills you will learn or be prepared to organise an Activista group in your locality
• You must have good presentation skills and should be able to communicate in the local language of the location where you are based.
• Only Nigerian based applicants are eligible to apply.

NOTE: The training will take place in Nigeria and ActionAid Nigeria will be responsible for transport, accommodation and feeding of selected applicants throughout the training.

Closing date for this application is 9th April 2012.

Click here to download the application form.

To read more about the program, click here

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World Nomads Southeast Asia 2012 Travel Writing Scholarship

Deadline: 23 April 2012

DO YOU WANT TO BE A PUBLISHED TRAVEL WRITER?

This year we decided to shake things up a bit and instead of choosing just one country for our scholarship…we’ve decided to send you off to three different countries in Southeast Asia! Once on the ground, you’ll have the opportunity to see for yourself life beyond the banana pancake trail, and get to know Southeast Asia from the local perspectives, through the eyes of three amazing writers.

HERE’S THE TRIPLE-DIP DEAL:

First you’ll head off to Singapore to go on assignment for five days under the mentorship of Rough Guides writer Richard Lim to review and update ‘The Rough Guide to Singapore’.

Then you’ll fly to Bali and meet up with Stuart McDonald, founder of Travelfish, the online travel guide to Southeast Asia, before heading off on six days of cultural insight and adventure in Indonesia.

For the last leg of the scholarship, you will be whisked off to Malaysia for a food odyssey through Kuala Lumpur and Penang with former local and cookbook author of award winning hsa*ba Burmese cookbook, Tin Cho Chaw, to explore how cuisine shapes the lives of Malaysians.

IMPORTANT DATES

**You need to be available between June 18th – July 6th, 2012 to participate on the assignment.**

April 23 Submission deadline

April 24-May 11 Judging preliminary shortlist

May 11-16 Finalists shortlist

May 17 Winner confirmed and announced

May 17-June 17 Trip preparation

June 18 Arrive in Singapore

June 19-20 Meet Richard Lim – Singapore, shadow for two days

June 21-22 Solo assignment for two days

June 23 Meet up with Richard, feedback on assignment etc.

June 24-30 Indonesia: Culture & Adventure

July 1-July 5 Malaysia: Food Odyssey

July 6 Depart

August 20 Copy deadline

WHO CAN APPLY

* This opportunity is open to students, emerging and non-professional writers and lovers of travel looking for a career change.

* The scholarship is open to all nationalities, however, you must have a high degree of proficiency in written English.

* The opportunity is designed to give you a taste of what it’s like to be a travel writer on the road, so you must be comfortable doing some travel on your own.

* Minimum age 18 by the date the scholarship application close (April 23, 2012)

* A current passport with at least six months before expiry

* You must be available as per the dates set out. Please note these dates are not changeable in anyway, you must be available for the entire assignment.

* You should be an exceptional writer with a lust for adventure travel, a desire to experience new cultures (and eat them!)and above all, a burning desire to become a professional travel writer!

WHAT CONSTITUTES A PROFESSIONAL TRAVEL WRITER?

Essentially this is a ‘learning opportunity’ for someone who is looking for an introduction into the travel writing industry and importantly keen to be mentored.

As a guide, for the purposes of the opportunity, we would consider you to be professional travel writer if you have been published regularly in newspapers, travel magazines or travel journals. We would also consider you to be a professional travel writer if you derive more than 25% of your income from travel writing.

If you have had a few stories published, or keep a regular travel blog then we would not consider this professional.

We would also like to further clarify that a professional writer of any sort (travel writer or otherwise) is not eligible to apply if they derive more than 25% of their income from writing.

Please consider the spirit of the program which is intended to help those with a burning desire to be a professional travel writer and need some help getting started.
Apply now

IF YOU WANT IT, YOU’VE GOT TO SHOW IT. TO APPLY YOU NEED TO:

1. Write. Craft a 2000 character or less (about 500 words) travel focused essay based on a personal experience around one of the following themes;

a. ‘Understanding a Culture through Food’

b. ‘A Local Encounter that Changed my Life’

c. ‘Seeing the World through Others Eyes’

d. ‘Giving Back on the Road’

It’s up to you to convince our judging panel through your writing that you have the spirit of adventure and passion for travel writing to be chosen for this scholarship. We will be looking for:

- great descriptive ability
- strong eye for detail
- ability to uncover and tell a compelling story
- excellent spelling and grammar and a knack for avoiding clichés

2. Complete an entry form which includes contact details and a maximum 800 character (about 200 words) essay on why you should be chosen and what the opportunity will mean for you. Your answer will provide considerable weight in the judging process.

3. One entry per person.

4. The entry must be submitted in English.

Applications close April 23, 2012 at 2pm (AEST)

The recipient of the Scholarship, along with the shortlist of best entries will be published on the WorldNomads.com website on May 17th, 2012.

Read the full terms and conditions here >>

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For submissions: apply online here
Website: http://www.worldnomads.com/

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