Winners of HCRI ‘Words For Your World’ school writing competition announced

The Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute has announced the winners, runners up and commended entries of their ‘Words For Your World’ School Writing Competition, in partnership with UK-Med and Save the Children UK.

The competition asked secondary students from years 9-13 across the UK to write a letter or speech addressed to the UN, on the climate emergency. 

HCRI received over 100 entries, judged by Gareth Owen OBE from Save the Children UK, HCRI’s own Lecturer in Responses to Climate Crises, Dr Stephanie Sodero and Sophie Grattidge from UK-Med.

School students were also offered the opportunity to be part of the competition’s creative writing workshops led by Chad Campbell who  is the author of two collections of poetry, Laws & Locks (Signal, 2015) and Nectarine (Signal, 2021). He is one of the poetry editors at The Manchester Review and teaches creative writing at The University of Manchester's Centre for New Writing.

A prize giving event will be held on the 15 July for the winning entries and guests on the university campus, which will celebrate their hard work. 

The winning entries will also be displayed at Bluedot Festival 2022 as part of the HCRI stall in partnership with UK-Med, alongside the graphic novella called ‘Sounding the Siren: Amrita’s Story’ about disasters both caused and made worse by the climate emergency.

You can view the winning entries here.

HCRI is a leading global centre for the study of humanitarianism and conflict response, global health, international disaster management and peacebuilding.

www.hcri.manchester.ac.uk