Overall, there were two in-situ events organised (in Warsaw and Katowice) including workshops on climate change, energy transition, film making and future of Silesian Voivodeship. In total 79 young people between 14 and 19 years of age participated in the events and 20 teams up to three people submitted films for the short film contest with prizes including a professional film-making course and 1TB mobile storage device. Various books on climate change and energy transition were given to all participants of the film competition.
The first training workshop mainly focusing on climate change, energy transition and film making took place on 25th November 2023 in Dom Kultury Świt in Warsaw, Poland. The full recording of the event is accessible online from the Polish Green Network’s You Tube channel from the following link: https://www.youtube.com/live/p0XzqdmtvXU
The 1st in-situ event in Warsaw included workshops on climate change and energy transition delivered by Marcin Popkiewicz, a renowned megatrend analyst, expert, and journalist focusing on the connections between economy-energy-resources-environment. He is the author of bestsellers “Świat na rozdrożu” (‘The World at a Crossroads’), “Rewolucja energetyczna. Ale po co?” (‘Energy Revolution. But Why?’), “Nauka o klimacie” (‘The Science of Climate’,” and “Zrozumieć transformację energetyczną” (‘Understanding the Energy Transition’). Popkiewicz is the founder and editor of the websites www.naukaoklimacie.pl and www.ziemianarozdrozu.pl and the winner of the main prize “Dziennikarze dla Klimatu 2015” (‘Journalists for Climate 2015’), “Economicus 2016” for the best book promoting economic knowledge, and “Promoter of Renewable Energy 2016.” Together with the editorial team of “Nauka o Klimacie” he is a laureate of the “Science Popularizer 2017” award granted by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and Polish Press Agency (PAP). In 2022, he was named ‘Leader in Education for Sustainable Development’ by Forbes magazine. Popkiewicz is the Chair of the Monitoring Committee for projects related to the European Green Deal at the National Centre for Research and Development.
The session on film making was delivered by Olgierd Michalak who is an accomplished cinematographer and camera operator who is a graduate of the renowned Cinematography Department at the National Film, Television, and Theatre School in Łódź. He has worked as a director of photography for documentaries and reports in over 90 countries worldwide, focusing on nature and humanity. His portfolio includes projects in the Himalayas, armed conflicts, as well as underwater photography in the open ocean. He has worked for both Polish and international television. His work has been broadcast in over 50 countries, winning awards ranging from Grand Press to the Dolphin Award from Cannes. For the past 7 years, he has been the director of photography for the Martyna Wojciechowska’s program “Kobieta na krańcu świata” ‘Woman at the Edge of the World’.
Second in-situ event provided workshops on knowledge about climate change, future of the Silesian Voivodeship and a more practical workshop on filmmaking. It was organised for high school students and took place in Katowice on January 22, 2024.
Details of the workshops:
1. Climate Knowledge Workshop:
Qualified climate educator with an exceptional approach to young people, conducted an educational workshop on climate, climate catastrophe, and the actions taken by politicians and activists to save the planet from disaster. A lot of knowledge and interesting facts were presented in an accessible way for young people using predominantly visual materials (photographs) to stimulate engagement. Session allowed for spontaneous discussions as questions appeared.
2. Future of the Silesian Voivodeship Workshop:
Conducted by a climate activist involved in NGOs and the European Union. The workshop focused on the future of Silesia, with the youth envisioning a futuristic vision of a place that, after years of industrial history and tradition, would completely change its profile. The main themes of the workshop included Just Transition, green energy, the future of IT, development, future technologies, as well as social situations and future professions.
3. Film Workshop:
During the session, delivered by the Polish Green Network’s communication team, participants recorded short videos with their phones answering the question: how do I see climate change? This was sometimes done though a short statement recorded “selfie-style.” The videos were recorded individually or in pairs, with a maximum length of 5 minutes. Students had 30 minutes on-site to complete the task, however were encouraged to think about the film idea beforehand.
Overall, the above initiatives resulted in increased awareness about climate related issues and some basic filming principles amongst the events’ participants. We strove to engage young people by offering both knowledge input and hands-on activities requiring their active involvement, research and creativity in order to spark curiosity, sense of ownership of the challenges and knowledge consolidation. By offering attractive prizes we wanted to encourage and provide further inspiration and growth opportunities. By suggesting team effort for the video-making we wanted to encourage collaboration amongst youth. Finally, the involvement of renowned speakers was to provide high-quality knowledge to participants and raise the profile of the climate-related event.
Through the recruitment process for the kick-off event numerous institutions and individuals (from schools and educators to eco-institutions and young people etc.) were reached from across Poland and informed about the initiative through various channels. By providing transport reimbursement and catering we wanted to ensure there were no financial barriers to accessing the activity for people coming from various locations and especially from outside the Warsaw area. Overall, the events helped to achieve one of the project’s intended impacts and objectives, namely, ‘reducing the identified gap in the general knowledge regarding the impact of climate change’. As well as the contest objectives, namely ‘to stimulate and promote global citizenship through reflection and engagement of young citizens and communities in discussions and actions related to climate and environment’.
Further details about the film competition can be found on the Polish version of the page: