ECO-UNESCO's Young Environmentalist Awards is an awards programme that empowers young people to become better citizens, build awareness of environmental issues and promote simple lifestyle changes to improve the environment. Each year ECO-UNESCO celebrates, recognises and rewards the green achievements of young people taking ECO- Action at the ECO-UNESCO Young Environmentalist awards Showcase & Ceremony.

A brief History of the Awards...

ECO-UNESCO's Young Environmentalist Awards Programme has been running since 1999 and has attracted the participation of over  4,000 young people and reached countless others with awareness raising campaigns in over 1,500 youth groups, schools and  communities in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Ireland's biggest celebration of young people taking ECO-Action!

The introduction of a new element this year, the regional ECO-Dens (where groups pitch their projects to a panel of experts in order to convince them that their group should be in the final) has allowed more young people than ever before to get involved and has helped the ECO- UNESCO Young Environmentalist Awards to surpass expectations this year to grow into Ireland's biggest celebration of young people taking environmental action.

This year, there were more than 200 entries from almost 4,000 passionate and talented young people from every county in the island of Ireland. The 55 shortlisted projects on display at the ECO-UNESCO Young Environmentalist Awards Showcase and Awards ceremony 2011, which took place on Tuesday 24th May in Dublin city centre are a testament to the hard work, time and effort put into the projects by all the groups involved.

Director impressed

Elaine Nevin, Director of ECO-UNESCO, is delighted with the high standard of entries.

"We've had such an outstanding range of projects this year, focusing on diverse environmental issues including climate change, biodiversity, water and waste issues. We are consistently impressed with young people's creativity and dedication to their projects and are already looking forward to celebrating more achievements at the ECO-UNESCO Young Environmentalist Awards ceremony 2012".

The highlights included; an project raising awareness about Climate Change using Polarbear sculptures made out of recycled materials that were placed throughout Dublin city centre; a group of young people who motivated their community to clean up the local beaches of plastic debris; one class who worked towards making their school go paperless; another group who began harvesting rainwater in their school; young conservationist carried out a project on protecting reintroduced Eagles in their area; young environmentalists who raised awareness about the importance of Bees in the environment.

"Over the past decade, the ECO-UNESCO Young Environmentalist Awards have inspired, encouraged and supported young people, school groups and youth clubs all over Ireland as they promote environmental conservation in their local areas. I congratulate all who have participated in the Awards over the years and in particular I thank this year's competitors for their hard work and wish them every success."
Mary McAleese, President of Ireland and Patron of ECO-UNESCO.

"I think the awards are a great way of promoting the environmental issues that affect us and give young people a chance to have their views on saving the environment heard."
Sarah, ‘Re-Juice Your Journey' group, Galway

"The Young Environmentalist Award isn't about just doing a project for prizes, it's about trying to make a difference little by little."
Aoife, ‘Where Will We Bee?' group, Kerry

Contact:
For more information on ECO-UNESCO's Young Environmentalist Awards contact:
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Telepone: +353 1 662 54 91
or visit www.ecounesco.ie