The Global Resilience Partnership (GRP), in collaboration with CDKN, is hosting a storytelling contest that will bring young voices with lived experiences of resilience to the forefront. Young people are encouraged to share stories that enable action and create lasting change.

This post originally appeared on the Global Resilience Partnership’s website.

Why storytelling?

Young people are key actors when it comes to nurturing resilient futures and their voices are essential for breaking barriers and developing innovative solutions. An estimated 75% of young people globally deem the future as frightening because of the unforeseen changes in the world. This, combined with a severe lack of representation of young people in formal decision-making processes, highlights the need to amplify young voices and stories. Amplification will ensure that young people’s experiences, opinions, innovations and solutions are heard and that they are involved in decisions that will influence their lives.

This competition intends to create a platform to support young people to connect, share and advance resilience insights and knowledge.

What to submit

A prize-winning story will be an engaging non-fiction piece. It will speak to readers about personal histories, experiences, social networks and systems in ways that they haven’t been engaged before. Stories should be well-written and have a clear narrative arc, with a compelling beginning, middle and end. Tell us about the dilemmas and trade-offs that decisions about resilience bring, but also the synergies and epiphanies that occur in the process. We want to hear about serendipities and unintended consequences too. We suggest including key characters, their perspectives and quotes at key junctures. We are interested in hearing from a wide range of voices from all backgrounds, genders, abilities, experiences, and perspectives. 

Submitted stories should be backed by verifiable facts and evidence, including local newspaper reports, websites, local NGO reports, blogs, videos or other stories. 

Submission process 

Before submitting a story, you will submit a pitch. The pitch should be a 500-word narrative on the proposed content of the story. This pitch should include a few lines about what the core premise would be, how you would construct the beginning, middle and end of the story and who the main characters are. Additionally, introduce yourself - who you are as a writer, where you are from and how this story is connected to you as an individual. Finally, include a line or two about what kind of evidence you intend to use for your story (provide links to videos, reports, other blogs or stories, etc.). 

Contest stages

The contest runs through a two stage process:

• The first stage will shortlist the top pitches. The shortlisted applicants will then gain experience in storytelling through a workshop and have access to further editorial support to hone their stories and publish them on the Resilience Platform.
• Following the first stage of the competition, the selected participants will be asked to submit a 1500-2000 word story for the final stage by the end of April 2023. 

The five top stories will be awarded $1000 USD each, and be featured on GRP’s website and social media.

The winners will be announced in June during the Evidence Forum 2023 and winners may be invited (online) to share their stories. 

All awardees will receive certificates. 

How to enter

Please submit a 500 word short pitch by 30th March 2023 through this Google Form.

Eligibility criteria

• This competition is open to young professionals of 18-35 years of age.
• Applicants from OECD DAC list of ODA recipient countries are eligible to apply - please refer here to see if you are eligible to apply.

For further terms and conditions and details on judging criteria visit GRP’s website.