How do I submit an article to spunout for the climate justice series?

In spunout, we believe it’s important for young people to share their stories, experiences, opinions and advice with other young people. By writing about your lived experience, you can help other young people to feel supported, empowered and less alone.

Currently, we are accepting written articles about climate change from anyone 16-25 years old and living in Ireland. If you are interested in submitting an article, find more about the article writing process below.

You do not need any writing experience. We’ll help you out every step of the way giving you feedback and suggestions for your piece.

Our goal for this series is to enhance and expand the Climate Action Hub. Currently, the hub features articles, interviews and opinion pieces exploring the causes and solutions of the climate crisis and youth perspectives on climate justice. This year, we want to add to it by sharing new stories from young people who have been involved in climate action and/or have witnessed climate change firsthand.

If you want to submit a video script, please contact [email protected] for our video script guidelines.

DEADLINE EXTENDED: Please submit your first draft to [email protected] by 5 pm on Friday, September 27th.

Step 1 – Picking a topic

We’re open to receiving articles related to your experience with climate change and climate justice.

Here are some topics that would be interesting to explore through voices pieces. Please get in touch with Mariah if you would like to create some content focused on any of the following:

• My experience with climate change while growing up on a farm
• What it’s like to live in a town that experiences extreme flooding
• My experience as a young climate activist
• 5 things I do in my life that help the environment
• How I take climate action in my local community

This list of ideas is not comprehensive, so if you have an experience you think would fit with the series but isn’t on the list, we would love to hear about it.

If you want to discuss your idea or need help brainstorming ideas, get in touch with [email protected]. If you have an idea you’d like to write about, you can get started on your article.

Step 2 – Getting started

When writing an article for spunout there are a few important points to remember:

• Articles should be between 500 and 1000 words long. Slightly longer or shorter is ok at draft stage
• Keep it conversational and informal. Use plain and simple language where possible so everyone can understand it. Find out more about using plain English.
• If you are including facts, statistics, or information from other sources, please send in links to where you got that information from. It’s very important to us that everything on our site is factually accurate.
• Try to make it engaging for your reader. What do you think they’re interested in reading and what messages do you want to give them
• Include information on support services where applicable so readers can get help if needed

Once you have written a draft or a finished piece, you can send it to [email protected] for feedback.

FAQ: Do I need to include a title with the article?

You do not need to have a title to submit your article. We can make a title for the article, or work with you on any suggestions you have.

FAQ: What are spunout’s child protection obligations?

spunout has a responsibility to protect children and vulnerable adults. If we receive content that leads us to believe that an identifiable child (under 18) or vulnerable adult was, is, or may be being abused, neglected or at risk of harm, spunout has a responsibility to pass this information onto social work teams and/or the Gardai. If you have any questions or queries, please visit Tusla.ie or contact [email protected].

Step 3 – Selection

After you submit your first draft to Mariah, we will read your piece. Due to our limited working capacity, we may decide not to publish your piece. This means that even if you submit a piece for this series, we are only able to select 5 voice pieces to be released for this series.

If we select your piece for publishing, we will let you know as soon as possible.

Step 4 – Editing

Once you send your finished article or draft to Mariah, she will read over it.

If only minor edits need to be made to the article, Mariah will make these.

If bigger changes need to be made to the article, Mariah will discuss these with you. In this case, it might take a few emails back and forth, and some extra time working on the article, but the editing process will help make your article the best it can be.

FAQ: Do I need to be involved in the editing process?

If bigger changes need to be made to your article, we want to work with you on these. This is your story, so we want to make sure it’s what you want to say. We also want to make sure it’s engaging and useful for our readers so we’ll work with you to get the article to a point we’re all happy with.

Step 5 – Checked by professionals

Some of your articles may need to be sent off to professionals for their review. We do this for lots of the content on our site to make sure it would not be harmful or triggering for our readers. If your content does need to be reviewed by professionals or the professionals suggest changes to your article, we will discuss this with you.

FAQ: How long does this take?

This can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks as the professionals review the articles on a voluntary basis. We’ll keep you updated every step of the way.

Step 6 – Publishing

Your article will be published on the spunout website once it’s ready. Once your article is live on our website, feel free to share with your friends and family, or post it on your social media.

FAQ: Do I have to use my name on the article?

We can use your name as the author, post is as ‘Anonymous’ or post it under a nickname. We’ll discuss this with you before publishing it on our website.

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• Connect with a trained volunteer who will listen to you, and help you to move forward feeling better
• Free-text SPUNOUT to 50808 to begin
• Find out more about our text message support service

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