Now in its eighth year, the Global Good Awards supports long-term sustainable change by raising the profile of young individuals, NGOs and businesses doing exceptional work to address social and environmental issues.
At the hybrid award ceremony on 13th October, Netra Venkatesh and Nabilah Chowdhury were announced as the winners of the Under 16 and Under 21 categories, respectively, with judges praising their work in driving positive change.
As with all candidates, they were asked to submit entries detailing their activism, identifying alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as supporting photos and videos to illustrate how imagery can deliver a universally understood sustainability message.
Netra Venkatesh took home the award in the U16s category for her work founding the Dubai-based SpunkGo social media for Good organisation, which is dedicated to providing free education to 5,000 young women in rural, refugee and slum settings across the developing world. In particular, judges called out her efforts in creating a free and accessible webinar-based learning platform to empower young women across 20 countries to achieve this mission.
In the U21 category, Nabilah Chowdhury won for her commitment to driving positive change with her wildlife and conservation volunteer work, alongside broader climate activism, in Australia. She was commended for her volunteer work at Taronga Zoo’s YATZ (Youth At The Zoo) programme for the past five years, as well as her full-time commitments to organising national school strike 4 climate action and helping arrange Sydney-based sustainability campaigns such as #FundOurFutureNotGas.
Canon has sponsored the Young Champion of the Year Award category for three years. The sponsorship is an extension of Canon’s sustainability vision to use the power of imaging to help people imagine a better world. This commitment is also driven by Canon’s Young People Programme, an initiative to inspire, educate and empower young people across EMEA to share the sustainability stories, aligned with the UN SDGs, that matter most to them.
In a Global Good Award first, Canon YYP ambassador and artist, Eliška Sky, exhibited the first three studies of her photography project that explores the SDGs: Affordable and clean energy (7), Reduced inequalities (10) and Life on land (15). The series titled, Parasites, explores all 17 SDGs through expressions of the human body, focusing on the impact humans have on the world and how we have power to solve these challenges. The images were printed at the Canon customer experience centre in Birmingham, on a sustainable alternative to foam board, FSC certified Dispa Board Bright White FSC4. You can find out more about the Parasites series in this Canon View article.
For more details on the finalists’ entries, please visit the Global Good Awards website here: https://globalgoodawards.co.uk/