Greener Devon 2020

Despite the disruption that coronavirus has brought, Devon’s Members of Youth Parliament (MYPs) have continued their excellent work on campaigns focusing on issues that matter most to young people.

One of those issues is climate change, so the team of MYPs created Greener Devon – a youth-led campaign by Devon Youth Parliament to help make a more eco-friendly home for everyone.

And as part of this eco-friendly initiative, the team staged Greener Devon Week (19-23 October 2020) that highlighted the issue of climate change and promoted green ideas to help save the environment.

The event was a great success, with several schools and young people across the county taking part. And the team’s eco-friendly message has definitely got through. For example, here are pupils at Bearnes Voluntary Primary School discussing what they are going to do to make Devon a greener place.

You can find more details of Greener Devon Week, and what the team plan to do next, in this write up of the event by MYP for Exeter, Georgia Howell.

As Devon’s contribution to the national Youth Parliament ‘Protect Our Future’ campaign, we at Devon Youth Parliament set up our campaign, ‘Greener Devon’. And after running an incredibly successful competition during lockdown to design a logo, we spent a few months organising what came to be known as the ‘Greener Devon Week’ – a countywide event for schools and youth groups. 

All across Devon there are organisations working hard to help save the environment and the climate. So, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, as a team we decided to plan a week where all of the work of these organisations could be recognised and made beneficial to young people. We spent time making contact with so many interesting, knowledgeable groups and people who helped us to articulate visions of what a ‘Greener Devon’ would be. We also collected some great resources along the way that we could pass on. What’s more, some of the knowledge we’ve been lucky enough to gain will continue to benefit us throughout not only this campaign, but also in the future with our next chapters.

On our social media pages we had a large engagement from organisations and schools who wanted to help in some way. We truly found that this was such a good opportunity for all of the work happening to be communicated to young people, and for young people to learn more about what they can do – as an individual or in their school. We hope to keep in touch with these organisations for future work, as collaboration is the only way to create lasting change.

As a team, we believe that there are two key steps to this campaign: education and action. Greener Devon Week was the first half of the plan, educating young people more about the climate crisis closer to home and the importance of changing our ways. Looking forward, we hope to create action with the Greener Devon Campaign, action that can involve the community and young people all across Devon. We would like to work towards visible, tangible change to benefit every single person in Devon and, most importantly, save our earth. 

To stay up to date with what we’re doing, follow our social media platforms, @greenerdevon on Instagram and Twitter and look out for ways to get involved!