News

SLU Youth Institute has two new laureates!

Published: 31 May 2021

During the last few weeks, the two finals of SLU Youth Institute took place, gathering groups of committed students and experts within food security. We now have two particurlarly prominent students who get the chance to participate in Global Youth Institute this autumn, hosted by World Food Prize Foundation. They will meet and network with World Food Prize laureates, other students and experts.

Joanna and Smilla have been selected to represent SLU Youth Institute 2021.

Almost 300 high school students have, during the last months, been writing about a global challenge of their own choice. The global challenges were within the field of food security investigated from different angles.

For the first final, 19 students attended and got an afternoon filled with inspiration, feedback on their theses and a chance to network with both experts and other students. The second final attracted about 30 students.

- We want to create commitment among young people for sustainable food security and are happy to have created a platform where high school students can give their suggestions for change directly to experts who work within this field, says Kristina Karlsson Green, coordinator at SLU Youth Institute.

The selected to represent SLU Youth Institute 2021

Johanna and Smilla submitted well-designed theses in which they proposed well-thought-out and sustainable solutions to difficult global challenges. According to the experts, they also presented their solutions with great commitment in the roundtable discussions. They are therefore this year´s SLU Youth Institute laureates. Congratulations!

 
Joanna:
My thesis is about Zimbabwe's agriculture. In short, I try to describe the challenges the country has in agriculture today and what led to it, that is, a little about Zimbabwe's history. After, I have given three solution proposals for how to work for a long-term and sustainable agriculture in the country, based on the country's situation and resources. 
 
Being a part of the SLU Youth Institute has been fun, interesting and rewarding. It has been fantastic for me as a young person to share my thoughts on important societal issues. Sustainable agriculture is a very important and complex issue. This is not just about food on the table for the earth's population, but also concerns questions about what the distribution of the earth's resources should look like in the future. In addition, we are in the midst of both a climate crisis and a pandemic that are increasing the challenges in the work for sustainable agriculture and sustainable food security.
 
Being selected to represent SLU Youth Institute feels really great and exciting!
 
 
Smilla:
My thesis is about agriculture in Brazil and what can be done to make it more sustainable. I also write a bit about the rainforest, the Amazon, because it has a direct connection to agriculture, through the climate it brings, but also because the rainforest is incredibly important for the earth's health as it binds enormous amounts of carbon. In addition, Brazil is one of the world's largest agricultural nations. In the thesis, I tell a little more about Brazil and the challenges they face when it comes to agriculture. I have tried to find a number of different solutions to the problems I have been able to see.
 

I think it was interesting and informative to participate in the SLU Youth Institute and even though it required a lot of work from us who participated and wrote theses, I think it was fun to work on a project that is taken further than to the teachers. It felt like it became more meaningful and you got a little extra push.

I'm a little surprised that I was selected to participate in the Global Youth Institute and it feels both nervous and fun!

Facts:

The SLU Youth Institute (SLU YI) aims to create interest among Swedish youth for global food security and to find sustainable solutions to the global challenges based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The SLU Youth Institute is a Swedish part of the many Youth Institutes coordinated by the World Food Prize Foundation. To participate, students write a short report about a global challenge of their own interest.

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Contact

For more information please contact one of the coordinators on e-mail: youthinstitute@slu.se

Anna-Klara Lindeborg (Uppsala region):
Telephone: +46-(0)730-88 64 47

Kristina Karlsson Green (Skåne region): 
Telephone: +46-(0)40-41 53 02

Elisabeth Nyström (Umeå Region):
Telephone: +46(0)90-786 82 38