Among the participants of the project there are 20 educational institutions of the city of Eastbourne, Great Britain. Now our students encourage all their colleagues to join this initiative as well.
The Birds2BHeard project was created by the Making Natural History initiative group, which aims to promote environmental protection among young people and show world leaders that young people are concerned about this problem.
The project was inspired by the first international UN Children’s Conference on environmental issues Leave It To Us, initiated by young people. It took place in Eastbourne in 1995. More than 800 delegates came from 87 countries, putting Eastbourne on the world stage as a center for youth environmental activism.
In 2020, a group of Eastbourne schools created a flock of paper birds to communicate their concern for the environment at COP26 (the United Nations Climate Change Conference). After the event, the pupil of West Rise Junior School expressed her concerns in a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He replied: «I am extremely encouraged by the interest and enthusiasm you and other young people have shown for this issue... I agree that we all need to work together to protect our planet and ensure a more sustainable future».
This example of artistic activism inspired another 5,000 young people aged 4 to 19 to join such an event. 20 schools of Eastbourne took part in making paper birds, each carrying a distinctive message to world leaders who attended the COP26 Climate Change Conference in 2021. Thus, a tradition of creating beautiful paper birds with messages-calls to action to local, national and world leaders arose. They called their call-to-action Birds2BHeard.
Photos: Anna Levytska, IT College of Lviv Polytechnic
