My short story Script Climate Change Magic won the third place for the 2020LUNE SPARK Short Story World Contest and is part of the book Through Their Lenses.
Script Climate Change Magic‘s synopsis:
Story’s plays change reality, and reveal potential futures. As the terrible impacts of climate change advance across his land, the young boy in the wheelchair discovers he is capable of great transformations, harnessing his unique magic as a playwright to inspire youth movements who can change their world. Finally, by writing his own soul into the most important drama he has ever dreamt, Story tries to save his Troupe and the children they shelter from the storms.
“Yet another gem of a book.” ~Tim Ellen, Blogger Through Their Lenses is a collection of twenty-nine award-winning short stories by tweens. These stories encompass a wide range of genres, inviting readers to explore a wealth of important themes passionately crafted by these young writers: from a girl going on a quest to release a curse bestowed on her by a witch to a guy trying to escape after being stranded in a different time.
I’ll be chairing Free Online Eco-Seminar Mini-Series for Students – Register Now!
Together with the Voices of Future Generations Children’s Initiative, the Cambridge Schools Eco-Council has been organising a mini-series of free 60 minute Online Eco-Seminars to raise awareness of key sustainability challenges and solutions, while schools have been forced online in many countries. Children, students, families and members of the public can register for free over Eventbrite and participate online over Zoom, 4:30-5:30pm (UK time) on 17 February and 24 February.
Eco-Seminar 1: Saving our Steams and Rivers through Sustainable Water Management – Wednesday, 17 February 2021
Focus: How can we better protect and sustainably manage our beautiful freshwater resources, preventing floods and depletion, and saving our streams and rivers?
Chairs:Nico Roman (Cambridge Schools Eco-Council Co-Chair, Voices of Future Generations Child Ambassador, Kings College School Eco-Society Co-leader) and Paloma Bargh (Cambridge Schools Eco-Council Deputy Chair and Eco-Activities Committee Co-Chair, Saint Johns College School Eco-Society Co-leader)
Speakers: Child author speaker: Rehema Kibugi (Gold Award Laureate, Voices of Future Generations (VoFG) Children’s Rights Initiative, Child Author for Africa) tbc Ecocouncil speaker: Junayd Islam (Cambridge Schools Eco-Council former Co-Chair, key organizer of student climate strikes and city council livestreamed Eco-Council meetings). Experts: Ian Halls (Leader, Cambridge Friends of the Earth) and Fabiana Piccoli Araújo Santos (LLM Candidate at the University of Cambridge and co-founder of Itacaré Water Caring Project Brazil)
Eco-Seminar 2: Promoting Sustainable Lifestyles through Preventing Plastic Waste – Wednesday, 24 February 2021
Focus: How can we better promote and practice more sustainable lifestyles at home and through our shopping habits, even during lockdown, preventing plastic waste and protecting our fragile rivers, oceans and ecology?
Chairs: Nico Roman(Cambridge Schools Eco-Council Co-Chair, Voices of Future Generations Child Ambassador, Kings College School Eco-Society Co-leader) and Ginny Denmead (Cambridge Schools Eco-Council Co-Chair and St Bedes College School Eco-Society Co-leader)
Speakers: Child author speaker: Freya Tikva (Gold Award Laureate, Voices of Future Generations (VoFG) Children’s Rights Initiative Child Author for Europe, Cambridge Schools Eco-Council Deputy Chair and Co-Chair of Eco-Activities Committee. Ecocouncil speaker: Luana Fernandes Seixas (Cambridge Schools Eco-Council Communications Officer, Student Leader of Long Road Sixth Form Eco-Council, key organizer of student climate strikes and eco-seminars). Experts: Emma Thomas (Co-founder and Director, Full Circle Zero Waste Retail, Ecologist) and Ben Thomas (Environment Manager, Cambridge Waitrose Grocery Store) Over zoom, after a 15 mins for tech testing and interactions from 4:15pm to 4:30pm, student Eco-Councillors and UN Voices of Future Generations child authors / ambassadors, together with world-class experts, will provide a 20-minute introduction to a sustainability challenge, and discuss creative local and solutions. For a further 30 minutes, participants can ask questions and discuss potential solutions and ways to raise education and awareness interactively, followed by a 10-minute closing from the experts and youth speakers by 5:30pm.
My award-winning short story Street Art Nature Magic forms part of Just One More, Stories that you can’t put down.
Just One More is a collection of 29 award-winning short stories by middle-grade children like me. The best short stories from the 2019 Lune Spark Young Writers’ Short Story Contest. These stories encompass a wide range of genres, inviting readers to explore a wealth of important themes passionately crafted by these young writers.
These are Stories that you can’t put down! Get your copy here.
About Lune Spark: Lune Spark Books aims to encourage children to engage in creative writing. The publishing company works with parents and young writers to promote creative fiction writing and help identify talent. It runs annual short story competitions, conducts creative writing classes, and publishes short stories by young writers.
Please help us to make our planet a better place by putting an end to waste!
Press Release on Dec 18, 2020 – YouthStrike4Climate
Each year, consumers in the UK use an average of 227,000 miles of wrapping paper, with over 83km2 of this ending up in our bins. On top of this, two million turkeys, five million Christmas puddings, and 74 million mince pies are disposed of while still edible, causing almost 270,000 tons of food waste during this widely celebrated holiday. We cannot sustain this.
This year, we need to come together to tackle the huge amount of waste we produce at Christmas. Families can create new ways of being sustainable around the Christmas period. Because of the current global pandemic, we are unable to meet up in large groups, so we do not need to buy as much food and wrap as many presents as we usually do. And, if large households do not have guests staying, they do not need to heat rooms of the house that are left unused.
Source: Cambridge Independent
On Friday Dec 18, 2020, members of the Cambridge Schools Eco Council will be meet at iconic sites around Cambridge in socially distanced groups of six to sit-in with placards and signs. There were be no chants or speeches, only kids sitting down with placards to remind the world of the important climate crisis. We discouraged supporters from joining us as we wish everyone to be safe in these uncertain times. Instead, we would recommended striking from the safety of their own homes by sharing pictures with a Christmas message about climate change.
As this strange year draws to an end and we would like our community to know how proud we are of them. When faced with a pandemic we have done incredible things purely for the wellbeing of those around us. We have stayed in doors when we would have liked to have gone outside, managed to keep our hands clean and wear masks to do our bit in stopping the virus, and stayed in touch with our neighbours to make sure they’re OK. We have given money, time and energy so we can make it through together. We have treated this crisis like a crisis.
This is why it disheartens us that we are still failing to stand up to the climate crisis. While we welcome the UK government’s efforts, it is looking very unlikely that the Ten Point Plan will succeed in its aim to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The plan ignores the biodiversity crisis and relies too heavily on new technologies, which engineers and scientists warn are unlikely to save the planet. We know we can tackle a crisis, as we have so well demonstrated in past weeks, but only when communities and individuals come together and do their bit.
We strike to make our voices heard, to fight for the planet, and for the survival of humanity.
We organised free 60 minute Online Eco-Seminars to raise awareness of key sustainability challenges and solutions, while schools have been forced online in many countries. Children, students, families and members of the public free over Zoom from April 21 to June.
Each Online Eco-Seminar focused on a key sustainable development goal, such as Climate Action (SDG 13), Protecting and Restoring Life on Land (SDG 15) or Agriculture and Food Systems (SDG 2). Each Online Eco-Seminar included student Eco-Councillors and UN Voices of Future Generations child authors / ambassadors, together with world-class experts, provided a 25-minute introduction to a sustainability challenge, and discuss creative local and solutions.
We have recorded these eco-seminars (see below) in case you missed any of them or simply if you would like to watch them again.
ECO-SEMINAR 1: GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE, THE PARIS AGREEMENT AND LOCAL SOLUTIONS – APRIL 21, 2020
Expert: Professor Christina Voigt, Ph.D., LL.M-Env (University of Oslo international environmental law expert and professor, IUCN Climate Change Specialist Group Chair, IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law Member and UNFCCC Compliance Committee Member)
Child author speaker: Jona David, founding Eco-Councillor of the Cambridge Schools Eco-Council, award-winning UNESCO VoFG Child Author of The Cosmic Climate Invention and other books, and student at Winchester College, UK
Eco-council speaker: Virginia Denmead, Cambridge Schools Eco-Councillor, Deputy Chair and Secretary, leader of St Bedes Eco-Society and student at St Bedes School, UK.
ECO-SEMINAR 2: AGRICULTURE, FOOD SYSTEMS AND CLIMATE RESILIENCE – MAY 5, 2020
Child Author speaker: Rehema Kibugi (UN Voices of Future Generations Children’s Initiative Child Author, Kenya)
Eco-Council speaker: Magnus Bramwell (Cambridge School’s Eco-Council Councillor and Secretary UK)
Expert: Advocate Ayman Cherkaoui (International Jurist in Climate Change Law, Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact in Morocco, Lead Counsel for Climate Change at the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law)
Expert: Dr. Amy Munro-Faure (Coordinator at the Living Lab for Sustainability at the University of Cambridge)
ECO-SEMINAR 3: CLIMATE CHANGE, ENERGY POLICY AND SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES – MAY 19, 2020
Child author speaker: Jasper Chin-Moody (UN Voices of Future Generations Children’s Initiative Child Author, Australia)
Eco-Council speaker: Harry Auld (Cambridge School’s Eco-Council Councillor and Treasurer, UK).
Expert: Professor Laura Diaz Anadon (University of Cambridge Climate Change Policy Professor, University of Cambridge Peterhouse Bye-Fellow, C-EENG Fellow, Energy Policy Research Group Associate Researcher, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Research Associate, 6th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Lead Author).
Expert: MS Helene Kotter (Architect, Owner of Architecture Practice, Member of the Voice’s of Future Generations Children’s Book Series Leadership Council). In partnership with the Cambridge Schools Eco-Council.
ECO-SEMINAR 4: NATURE, BIODIVERSITY AND SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES – JUNE 2, 2020
Eco-Council speaker: Nico Roman (Cambridge School’s Eco-Council Co-Chair) and Freya Lundskær-Nielsen (Eco-Council Deputy Chair).
Experts: Ms. Hawa Sydique (Research and Communications Manager at the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute).
Tara Atleo (Environmental economics researcher and indigenous sustainable development professional from the Ahousaht First Nation in BC, Canada, PhD student University of Waterloo, Laureate Canada 150 Senate Medal).
Iain Webb (Cambridge City Greenways Project Officer).
ECO-SEMINAR 5: CONSUMERISM AND WASTE – JUNE 16, 2020
Child author speaker: Andrea Wilson (Gold Award Laureate, Voices of Future Generations (VoFG) Children’s Rights Initiative, Child Author for North America of Sarah’s Journey for Tomorrow, blog post author on the Sustainable Development Goals and Child Rights).
Eco-council speaker: Luana Fernandes (Cambridge Schools Eco-Council Communications Officer, Student of Parkside School, key organiser of student climate strikes and eco-seminars).
Expert: Dr. Markus Gehring (JSD, Dr iur, MA, LLM, Law and Land Economy Lecturer; Jean Monet Chair of European Law and Sustainable Development; Centre for International Sustainable Development Law Lead Counsel for Trade, Investment & Financial Law; Hughes Hall Law Director of Studies at the University of Cambridge).
Expert: Prof. Damilola S. Olawuyi, Professor of Energy and Environmental Law
Please note: Students participated with permission and under supervision of parents/guardians, from their homes.
These strikes raise awareness and put pressure on the government to take action. Times are so desperate that we as children are having to leave school for people to listen and take action. Each strike has a different theme. Show your support by performing a speech, make a placard or in any other artistic way.
During quarantine we have been doing online strikes. For this we ask you to send in a photo for the collage to be posted on our social medias and here on the website. Speeches, songs and other artistic expressions are also welcomed. You can send any submissions to our email: cambschoolsecocouncil@gmail.com.
Nico’s Narrative Report: Building an Eco-Composter for the Green Waste Emergency!
With the news that Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire district councils will not be collecting our green bins for a few weeks, I felt it a very good idea to build a green waste compost bin! I completed the project Step by Step.
Research: First, I researched the different designs and best location for a compost bin/heap, and investigated what can and what cannot be composted as green waste. I decided to make one that could compost layers of teabags, plant prunings and grass cuttings (green layers). According to The Eden Project, these are fast to break down and provide important nitrogen as well as moisture. I would also include things such as cardboard egg boxes, scrunched up paper and fallen leaves (brown layer). These are slower to rot but provide vital fibre and carbon and also allow important air pockets to form in the mixture. It was best to compost these green and brown garden wastes in the new ‘open’ composter, so my family could still use our other closed composters for food waste like fruit and veggie peelings. Otherwise it could attract mice and other animals, and make odours.
Design: Second, I made blueprint designs for a compost bin/heap for my garden. I eventually chose a cylinder made from wire and planks.I selected the most appropriate measurements: The planks are 54 cm long planks, to be driven 4cm into the ground, for a composter height of 50 cm. The length of chicken wire is 182cm, for a diameter of 58cm. This means my composter would have a volume of 158,525 cm3. For materials, I used old chicken wire that had been patching a fence, and two recycled planks of wood. I also used some withies of ivy which we recently cleared from a brick wall, to camouflage my composter and make it look more natural. (Recyle, Reuse, Reinvent!). I also made a list of tools needed, including the staple-puncher that I use to put up eco-council posters, a small hammer, saw and nails, and a spade for digging the holes. For safety equipment, I used gloves to guard against the wire and any splinters.
Design(I), Instructions for Use (II) and Materials List (III)
Construction:With help from my father (and amusement from my kitten), I built my composter. First, I gathered up the materials, including the wooden planks that were left over from a history project, and measured them carefully. I also gathered the tools we’d need, including the stapler, hammer, nails and small saw. For safely, we worked outdoors.
Second, I collected the other materials, including the leftover chicken wire from my tortoise table roof, that had been patching a hole in the fence. We did not use any new materials, except for the staples, because we wanted this composter to be very eco-friendly. Third, for safety it was my father who used the staple gun to punch the chicken wire to the planks properly. My kitten Alphabet was very interested in the chicken wire. Fourth, my father helped me to dig the holes in the soil, then we hammered the planks into the holes, so the composter stands upright. I tested it by inserting the first clippings of green waste. Finally, I used the ivy withies from a project last week to thin the ivy off the brick wall, to weave into the wire sides of my composter. They decorate and camouflage my composter so it blends into our green garden.
Building a Composter for the Green Waste Emergency
I greatly enjoyed making my composter because it required a bit of creative thinking about where to find materials that we could use, how to securely build the composter and where to place it in the garden. It helped that we had truly excellent weather all weekend so I was working in the sunshine for nearly two whole afternoons. I also had to distract my kitten, Alphabet, and keep her entertained so that she didn’t try to muddle everything up.I totally enjoyed the project of building a composter for green waste, because I felt that we were doing our bit to address a difficult situation with the green waste not being collected. I also enjoyed researching and creating the project idea, drawing the blueprints and planning diagrams, and being outdoors with my father and my cat to build it. I even rather enjoyed learning about ‘pi’ from my brother to calculate circumference and volume. My composter looks as if it belongs to the garden and blends into the scenery. It has very simple design and structure but is actually very sturdy!
Lecture at the University of Cambridge Nov,19, 2019
University of Cambridge, Department of Land Economy
Speakers: Nico (11 yrs) Kings College School, Co-Chair Harry (10 yrs), St Paul’s School, Treasurer Freya (9 yrs) Kings College School, Eco-Councillor Luana (15 yrs) Parkside School, Comms Officer
The Cambridge Schools Eco Council was formed in February 2019, after the first UK Youth Strike 4 Climate held in Cambridge and around the world on the 15th February. We now represent over 30 primary and secondary schools in Cambridge.
Our Eco Councillors have been in the national and local press, on local radio, been invited to meetings with the City Council, met our MP, Daniel Zeichner, and taken our message about the climate emergency to the ex-Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Gove. We have held 6 school strikes in Cambridge and organised a week-long programme of vigils on Kings Parade to coincide with the global week of climate action.
Cambridge Schools Eco Council: our declaration The science is clear. CO2 levels are higher than they have been for nearly a million years, average global temperatures are increasing, oceans are rising and becoming more acidic, wildfires are raging, and extinction rates are nearly 1000 times higher than they should be. If we continue burning fossil fuels, building unsustainable infrastructure and degrading our environment, children all over the world will be hurt or even die. We need to change all our lives and systems immediately or face an unimaginable future of heatwaves, floods, extreme weather, forest fires, crop failures, wars over land, food and water resource – the real risk of our own extinction. It is an emergency.
We are calling all local schools, town & county councils and the government to help us save our planet, our future and the future of generations to come, by declaring a climate emergency and acting on it immediately.
Cambridge Schools Eco-Councilis organising a mini-series of free 60 minute Online Eco-Seminars to raise awareness of key sustainability challenges and solutions, while schools have been forced online in many countries. Children, students, families and members of the public can register for free over Eventbrite and participate online over Zoom, 4-5pm (UK time) each fortnight from Tuesday 21 April to Tuesday 16 June. Each Online Eco-Seminar focuses on a key sustainable development goal, such as Climate Action (SDG 13), Protecting and Restoring Life on Land (SDG 15) or Agriculture and Food Systems (SDG 2). Each Online Eco-Seminar includes student and expert speakers.
Over zoom, after a 15 mins for tech testing and interactions from 3:45pm to 4pm, student Eco-Councillors and UN Voices of Future Generations child authors / ambassadors, together with world-class experts, will provide a 25-minute introduction to a sustainability challenge, and discuss creative local and solutions. For a further 25 minutes, participants can ask questions and discuss potential solutions and ways to raise education and awareness interactively, followed by a 10-minute closing from the experts and youth speakers by 5pm.
Nico's Natural World 