From August 1 until March 2013, the WWF is asking for contributions of stories about how climate change has affected real lives in Vietnam.

The programme is entitled “Earth Story”. Nguyen Thuy Quynh, Chief of Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) Vietnam’s Communication Office, said, “This is a follow up to our Earth Hour campaign. It was designed to elicit real experiences about climate change, and inspire new ideas about practical ways to deal with this issue.”

Quynh said, “The programme will be an open contest where the participants can send their writing, photos, paintings, videos or music or whatever people think best depicts the effects of climate change.”

The contest will have two phases. During the first, from August till December of this year, the WWF will organise a series of activities for students and young people in the Mekong Delta region, an area that is expected to see the worst effects of climate change.

After classification, 20 contributions will be selected. These will be shared in order to heighten environmental awareness.

British NGO, Challenge to Change, has also pledged to provide technical assistance for the project. And the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will be a co-organiser.

Earth Hour

This year was the third annual Earth Hour, a campaign developed to save energy in Vietnam. This year’s Earth Hour involved 30 cities and provinces, and over 6,000 businesses across the country. The result was to save a combined 400,000 kWh of electricity just by turning of lights on the evening of March 26.