Write For Earth: a hopeful anthology for the future
Updated: Sep 27, 2022
University of Cambridge, University of Sussex | United Kingdom
Team members: Hannah Harrison, Matthew Harris, Leoni-Almaz Reusing
Hi there! We’re Hannah, Matthew & Leoni, three youth climate activists and the people behind Write for Earth. We met as volunteers for Generation Climate Europe, and after over a year of working with each other, we decided to create Write for Earth.
We share a common interest in turning the climate conversation toward those most affected by the impacts of the environmental crisis and a belief that we should be driven by hope for systems change and a future where the issues of rising atmospheric temperatures and social injustices are solved together.
We want to platform the voices of individuals – in all their diversity –experiencing the differentiated impacts of the environmental crisis. We want to share their knowledge, experiences, and hopes in a non-technical, heterogeneous way. This is often missed by academia and policy – so we’re asking you to submit your socio-ecological hopes for the future to our anthology!
Report 1: June 2022
We have entirely set up Write for Earth on our website (https://writeforearthanthology.wordpress.com/) and major social media platforms. The website has currently been viewed in 31 countries around the world. We have also communicated the project with different environmentally active (grassroots) organizations and student bodies. For example, we have connected with The Greenzine, a youth-led environmental journalism platform.
In the next month, we hope to hear back from Fitzwilliam College on whether we have received a grant for £500 and look forward to our first interview being published in Varsity. Now that our exams are over, the three of us have a better capacity to reach out to organisations to keep sharing the Write for Earth message.
It would really help us to get more submissions, and we would be grateful for any exposure the project can get. We welcome you to also contribute to the project.
Report 2: July 2022
This month, we negotiated our project responsibilities with university graduations and internship responsibilities. Nevertheless, we achieved a fair amount of progress!
Funding: we are pleased to have received £300 of funding from Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge. This funding will be aimed at producing physical versions of the anthology and report and boosting our social media presence.
The Greenzine: at our previous update, we had connected with The Greenzine, a US-based grassroots environmental journalism organization. Now, we have formally partnered with them. As a result, we have been featured in their latest newsletter and are featured on their website. Additionally, as of writing this update (14.07.22), tomorrow, we will meet with The Greenzine’s founder, Max, for an interview about Write for Earth’s message.
Submissions: with exams being over, we have received several submissions from around the world. As they come in, we have been making online content from them (Instagram reels, posts, and so on) to share some of the ideas we have been given and to give inspiration to those who are yet to write. Submissions are still open, so please contribute to the anthology if you have not already!
Growing the team: to build capacity and strengthen outreach, we have decided to grow the Write for Earth team. New team members will be responsible for boosting our global reach, and we will share more information on how people can get involved with us soon.
Report 3: August 2022
We have successfully conducted interviews for the outreach team and are currently onboarding volunteers to our WhatsApp group chat.
Submissions continue to come in, and we look forward to sharing a collaboration post with Global Choices Arctic Angels - an environmental non-profit whose work focuses on protecting the Arctic region - in the coming days.
Our interview with The Greenzine was published a few days ago; we were featured on an Instagram page dedicated to open calls for art and literature, which significantly increased followers on Instagram and more submissions. Alongside the outreach team, we are looking for similar opportunities and hope to share Write for Earth with as many people as possible!
This month we hope to reach out to our mentor - Dr. Bethany Wiggin - to see how she might be able to guide us going forward.
Report 4: September 2022
Anthology Updates: Our most significant update since our last report is that we have now closed submissions and are working on putting the anthology together. This involves collating all the submissions, reading over them to learn about repeated ideas or themes, and designing the anthology itself. We will also be writing a foreword with information about our learnings from the process and how these relate to the climate movement and climate communication at large. The anthology (which we are now calling ‘volume one’) will hopefully be printed in time for COP27 and make it to Egypt.
Outside of volume one, our plans now are to repeat what we have done and create a second volume of the anthology. We are currently considering re-opening submissions closer to COP27, using the momentum that the conference brings to drive engagement and submissions, and having them remain open for a longer period.
Collaboration with Arctic Angels: Our collaboration post with Arctic Angels has been shared. Engagement with the post was strong, receiving over 40 likes on Instagram, which we are pleased with. We hope to do more collaborative posts in the future and are looking into the potential of collaborating with Earthly Education soon.
Our Mentor: Away from the anthology, we are meeting with our mentor, Dr. Bethany Wiggin, this week and look forward to any advice she can give us about our plans going forward.
Moving Forward: We have also been reached out to by the Green Officers of the Colleges of the University of Cambridge and have plans to take part in Cambridge’s ‘Green Fair’ when the academic year commences in a few weeks. We are liaising with the Green Officer of Gonville and Caius College on logistics. If successful, this will be our first in-person event!