As we enter the last quarter of the European Year for Development 2015, international media is packed with examples of an unequal world – stories on migration, war, poverty, asylum, violence against women and, here at home, a woman’s right to choose.
Throughout the European Year, The Irish Times has published a range of articles from developing countries attempting to give voice to people living in these countries and also highlight the success of projects that Irish NGOs are involved in overseas. This has been a challenge.
Readers are often more ready to consume bad news stories – disaster, hunger, political unrest abroad – while, equally, the tradition of journalism is not built on selling good news.
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Ireland is an active European partner in the delivery and management of EU international aid. The NGO sector here is often critical of the priorities Government and the EU institutions place on this sector and have many reccomendations and plans for how we can deliver better programme strategies. It’s a complicated area, but, as one small part towards attempting to unravel it, the European Commission representation in Ireland is asking young people aged 18-30 to create a short blog post or article focusing on the impact of EU development aid (Europe Aid) around the world.
The competition requires articles with a word count of 300-500 words maximum, which is often harder to write than a longer piece. Can you capture an opinion on EU development aid in that short an article? If you can, we want to hear it. The competition is being run in association with the National Youth Council and being supported by The Irish Times as part of our contribution to the European Year. The closing date is October 22nd.
Full details and the online entry form are available at the website youth.ie/eyd
The prize: €500, the opportunity to report from One World Week 2015 and to see your piece published on irishtimes.com/insideout