Dr. Yannam Deepak, one of the chosen youths from Odisha who attended a 3-day residential "Climate Change and Environment Campaign Managers training" in Delhi this week, says that youth are the "torchbearers for climate action" and that our voices need to be amplified to raise awareness within the community. Youth4Water, a UNICEF Odisha initiative, organized the event with the goal of teaching participants how to create social media content and design campaigns.
The programs included writing workshops led by prominent journalists and field trips to various locations in the city. The youngsters were instructed on UNICEF's content development method and why by Vineeta Misra Chitransi, a communication associate at UNICEF India, Jyoti Sharma, director of Youth4Water, Shipra Saxena, a WASH specialist, and Radhika Srivastava, a communication specialist at UNICEF.
Assignments to the participants included creating an effective campaign and developing ideas to promote the messaging. The young people come up with novel solutions for issues, including slum sanitation, environmental education, organic farming, etc. The youngsters went to Rajon ki Baoli and Nila Hauz Biodiversity Park to learn about environmental concerns.
The youngsters received training from UNICEF's Gowri Sundarajan and Vineeta Misra Chitransi on storytelling in various forms, using Canva to create original material, creating posters and short movies, and utilizing photography and videography as storytelling tools. The participants were also required to create an environmental or climate change campaign and entertaining postings for social media accounts that would be submitted on UNICEF handles.
"I am pleased to witness the youth's excitement and inventiveness as emerging climate change activists. In the upcoming years, we look forward to cooperating closely with them to foster youth leadership in climate action, "Shipra Saxena from UNICEF remarked. As part of the event, the participants made an effort to use social media's potent capabilities to connect with 10,000 young people in Odisha.Training young people to run environmental campaigns