One Young World is proud to announce the winner of the 2017 Climate Justice Award is Joseph Sarvary of Paraguay. He is a founding member and Deputy Director of Fundacion Para La Tierra, an NGO dedicated to the creation of a more educated, more driven and more innovative generation of Paraguayan ‘eco-leaders’.
By creating a network of ‘Eco-Clubs’, the Foundation uses environmental education as a “conduit towards community leadership”. The program has been built on a belief that there is no age-restriction on taking action. In the final stage of their program, the students aged, 7-12 years old, organise, advertise and execute their own event with the aim of creating an environment in which they tackle the solutions their communities need.
Selected out of three finalists, Joseph will receive £5,000 to support his project and a fully-sponsored delegate place for the One Young World Summit 2017 in Bogotá Summit. The funding will allow Joseph to expand the Foundation's network of clubs by training new volunteers in their curriculum and supporting the growth of the program. Over 40 new Eco-Clubs will be established, reaching more than 600 children in communities across Paraguay, catalyzing youth-run community action projects that will positively impact the country's future.
This year’s edition of the award sought to support a project that focuses on creating intergenerational equity. Climate justice links human rights and development to achieve a human-centred approach, safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable and sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and its resolution equitably and fairly. Climate justice is informed by science, responds to science and acknowledges the need for equitable stewardship of the world’s resources.
Climate justice also requires intergenerational equity. This requires not only tackling the issue of climate change head on, but also building a world in which the young and those generations yet to come are able to live within planetary boundaries and experience the full enjoyment of their rights.
Last year at One Young World 2016 Ottawa, Mary Robinson, Catherine McKenna, Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change, and One Young World Climate Justice Prize Winner, Barkha Mossae, spoke in a panel of the same title to discuss equitable solutions in the face of global climate displacement.
Congratulations to Joseph!
Watch last year’s session:
