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UCC's Eco Champion!

Please see an article below about one of our students and his efforts to help make change happen:

One of our Y10 students, Edward, is following his dream – ‘to make change happen’.

Ed has been a member of Rutland Youth Council since March 2021, and this has led to him applying for other positions in youth organisations that are facilitating change.

This initially led to him joining the Global Action Plan Climate as a Youth Ambassador; representing the COP26 Youth Summit in November last year.

During COP26 Ed was involved in interviewing industry leaders & government ministers, including Clare Miller – Leader of the Green Party, Scotland, over Zoom – which was broadcast live during the summit.  Below is an excerpt from a letter that was received by Mr Solly from The Global Action Plan:

Ed is continuing in his Climate role and discussing what the next plans are and attends bi-weekly Zoom calls.

He also successfully applied for one of 5 places, and became a member Bite Back 2030 National Youth Board in November 2021, which was founded by Jamie Oliver, and campaigns for every young person to have access to healthy, nutritious food – no matter where they live.  On Saturday 4 December 2021 Ed went to London to the Jamie Oliver headquarters to meet his fellow campaigners (see photo below) and Jamie Oliver himself!

The main aims of Bite Back 2030 are to reduce child food poverty, make school dinners healthier and to campaign for universal free school meals for all students.  Anyone can get involved with the Bite Back 2030 campaign and become a ‘School Food Champion’ – for more information click on the link: https://www.biteback2030.com/

His most recent project is working with the UCC Eco-Group and Rutland County Council, in a bid to de-carbonise Rutland’s education establishments.  This will make Rutland the first council in the UK to be backed by a youth-led forum.  What does de-carbonising look like? 

  • zero carbon for transport /other areas
  • plant trees/solar panels to help off –set
  • change lights to ecofriendly light bulbs
  • use of artificial paper
  • install electric car chargers
  • encourage electric vehicles for the bus companies

Long term his ambitions include going to Oxford University to study History and Politics – I think we can safely say that he is well on track to achieve this.