Greater Good Charities' Girls’ Voices program supports young women to use media creation as a catalyst for positive change in communities around the world. Girls’ Voices provides targeted scholarship funding to support girls who face obstacles to their education.
Girls’ Voices hosts several contests to provide an opportunity for girls to use their voices to create media projects as a catalyst for positive change in communities around the world. This quarter, we received over one hundred submissions from girls around the world for our Climate Action Contest!
Our Girls’ Voices Climate Action Contest, in honor of Earth Day, proved to be a significant platform for change this year. Over 130 girls from 32 countries around the world participated in the contest to showcase their ideas for climate innovation. We asked girls, There’s a chance to act now to avert the worst effects of climate change. Young people are leading the effort to push for innovative solutions. How are YOU using your voice to push for climate innovation in your family or your community?
The inspiring group of young women who submitted videos amazed us with their efforts and ideas to mitigate climate change! The grand prize winner is Hafsah from Bangsamoro, Philippines. Hafsah and her colleagues Amalhayah and Abdul Halim discovered a way to make use of an invasive plant species in their region. The water hyacinth is an invasive species to their lake region that alters the balance of the marine ecosystem. This makes it harder for people to fish, and fish is their main form of sustenance. Hafsah and her team discovered that water hyacinths can be processed into a Biomass that produces biofuel which can then power transportation, household items, and industrial items. Essentially, their solution and social enterprise they call “BioPhil”, is a substitute for coal.
Syeda from Dhaka, Bangladesh is one of the contest’s honorable mention winners. She founded Plant Easy, a garden center and community of climate empaths. Plant Easy sells plants and provides workshops for people to understand the rewarding aspects of planting and the sustainable lifestyle that comes with it. The contest’s other honorable mention winner is Socheata from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. In her video, she illustrates how food and plastic waste contribute to climate change. She also mentions how she joined a programming and entrepreneurship competition for young girls, in which she had to create an app. She and her teammates created an app called Re-yum to help reduce food waste in Cambodia.
Every single video submitted demonstrates the power held by young women to use their voice as a powerful tool to demonstrate their climate actions across the world. Congratulations to our winners, and great job to all of the Climate Action Contest participants! Thank you for inspiring those in your community to protect our planet from the rapidly growing effects of climate change. To watch our participants’ impactful video submissions and to also help support their projects, go to GirlsVoices.org.
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