June 3, 2022 - Youth Action Campaign (YAC) 2022

World Environment Day - Humanitarian Education

The Youth Action Campaign (YAC) 2022, will focus on the Protection of Civilians and the Environment in War. The YAC is a social media campaign and contest that encourages students to explore the newly released story in ForcedToFight.ca about Miguel and the armed conflict taking place in his Indigenous community in South America.

Students will tell us what they learned about International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and solutions to the environmental impacts of war by submitting a social media post using the hashtag #ForcedToFightIHL. All regional contest winners will get to show their entry and connect with other students from across the country in an online event taking place for World Environment Day, June 3, 2022.

Contest Rules for Students:
Your mission is to suggest ways to help prevent the impact of war on civilians and the environment. With the support of your teacher, you will first explore Miguel’s scenario in ForceToFight.ca. Then in a post on a chosen social media platform (TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter), you will share your reaction or something you learned, along with a proposed solution to prevent environmental destruction in situations of war and help ensure compliance with IHL. For example, What should the military or armed groups do? What could Canada do? What can the courts, non-governmental organizations or the international community do? Or what could you or your school do?

We will be evaluating every entry based on their creativity, analysis and understanding of the Forced To Fight scenario.

Private entries: submit your poster or video entry to humanitarianeducation@redcross.ca subject line: #ForcedToFightIHL
 
Public entries: Share your poster or video entry on TikTok, Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag: #ForcedtoFightIHL

For Teachers:

To indicate your interest in participating with your class in the Youth Action Campaign (and to attend the June 3rd webinar) click here. The contest ends on May 29, 2022, and the winners will be revealed at the online event on *June 3, 2022 at 1:00pm EST.

For more information about the contest, click here.