A showcase of young people’s environmental action projects from around Ireland commences next week and runs for four weeks, until September 12th in the European Union House on Dawson Street, Dublin 2.

The exhibition displays over 20 projects from young people island-wide who participated in ECO-UNESCO’s Young Environmentalist Awards 2014 programme. There were 75 finalists at the Young Environmental Awards Showcase and Ceremony in May 2014 and the exhibition displays a number of the winning projects along with some highly commended groups.

ECO-UNESCO, Ireland’s environmental education and youth organisation has been running the Young Environmentalist Awards for the past 15 years. The programme encourages, supports and rewards young people to carry out environmental action projects in their local youth club, school or community. The projects on display in European Union House range from creating biodiversity trails to recycling over 500kg of aluminium cans, to establishing a ‘city farm’ to harvest crops and cut down on food miles.

Speaking about the exhibition National Director of ECO-UNESCO Elaine Nevin commented; “We are delighted that visitors to the European Union House will now have the opportunity to view and appreciate the hard work of young people from around Ireland and their efforts to protect and conserve our natural environment through our Young Environmentalist Awards programme. I hope that this exhibition will encourage other young people to take eco-action in their own communities and raise awareness about important environmental issues.”

The Young Environmentalist Awards is Ireland’s biggest celebration of youth eco-action. Young people come together in group of 2-25 people, decide on an environmental action project that needs addressing on a local or global scale, raise awareness of the issue and then participate in regional ECO-Dens where they pitch their projects to a panel of judges. From here, groups are selected to attend the National Showcase and Final in May.

The 2015 YEA will officially launch on September 3rd in the European Union House and schools and youth groups can register their projects with ECO-UNESCO until November 28th.

For more information on the Young Environmentalist Awards please visit www.ecounesco.ie .