NEWS

Energy SELF Portraits PHOTOGRAPHS AND STORIES CONTEST 2020-2021 (third and final round)

The first International Self Portraits contest linked to the topic of Energy

Launch of the contest: 21 November 2020

First deadline: 31 January 2021

Second deadline: 21 March 2021

Last deadline: 30 April 2021

The collection of Energy SELF Portraits focusses on different SDG7 dimensions such as energy access, its costs and options, its quality, its environmental implications as well as how energy efficiency and renewable energy may offer solutions to the SDG7 challenge. As energy is an enabler of many of the other SDGs, special emphasis is given to stories that highlight the particular role of energy in reducing poverty and hunger, increasing health, education and gender equality as well as tackling climate change.

The third and final round of the contest (21^st March – 30^th April) will give special visibility to the nexus between energy and education. The CORONA-19 global pandemic has caused the largest disruption of education in history affecting around 1.6 billion students in 190 countries, with the greatest impact on the most vulnerable and may threaten to erase decades of progress as a result of the economic impact of the crises.

“The crisis is exacerbating pre-existing education disparities by reducing the opportunities for many of the most vulnerable children, youth, and adults – those living in poor or rural areas, girls, refugees, persons with disabilities and forcibly displaced persons – to continue their learning”[1]

We want to help document the role of access to energy in education and how on the one hand the pandemic has resulted in innovative approaches to education including the use of radio’s, TV and online distance learning, while it has also demonstrated that lack of resources, energy included, leaves the vulnerable behind, further widening inequality both within nations and on a global scale.

The contest will accept Energy SELF Portraits which conform to the following photo formats:

1. Traditional family Self-Portrait: a photograph taken in or at the family home with one or more family members and a collection of energy devices.
2. Technology Self-Portrait: a photograph of one or more people standing with a type of technological device or process which has a connection to the energy challenge.
3. Community Self-Portrait: a photograph with one or more people and their collective connection with energy, for example, students at a school, doctors at a hospital, etc.

The Jury is composed of:

- Swetha RaviKumar Bhagwat, Head of FSR Global

- Sherry Kennedy, Director of Communications for Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL)

- Luca Locatelli, environmental photographer and film-maker

- Kip Patrick, Senior Director of Advocacy and Communications at the Clean Cooking Alliance

- Kristina Skierka, CEO of Power for All

- Fabrizio Trisoglio, Scientific Responsible of Fondazione AEM

Together they will select the winners of 15 prizes worth $100 USD and one overall winner for the contest who will receive a prize of $500 USD.

All winning portraits and stories will be made available to view on www.energyportraits.org and the social media of WAME and partners of the contest.

The CONTEST is open to EVERYONE! We invite all contest participants to publish their portraits on Instagram, using the hashtag #energyselfportraits

The contest Energy SELF Portraits is a project by WAME www.wame2030.org. Thanks to the support of Fondazione AEM, Florence School of Regulation and Fondazione Cariplo, WAME has been documenting the energy access challenge through images since 2017 with photographs taken by the photographer Marco Garofalo and captions by Matteo Leonardi.

Each photograph and associated caption depict the story of the portrait and provides basic information on access to electricity in that specific context. Particular attention is given to the convenience, reliability and sustainability of the energy service. Energy Portraits documents the challenge of Sustainable Development Goal 7: "Ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all".

[1] Policy Brief: Education during COVID-19 and beyond, United Nations, 2020 https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2020/08/sg_policy_brief_covid-19_and_education_august_2020.pdf