5 June, World Environment Day, is an opportunity to highlight the urgent need for action in the face of climate change and its tangible consequences in our daily lives: increasingly frequent heatwaves, pollution, loss of biodiversity, dwindling resources and the increasing fragility of our living environments.
To mark the occasion, Européens Sans Frontières and Cartooning for Peace in partnership with Greentervention, is highlighting an awareness-raising campaign focusing on the environment, the climate emergency and the role of young people in the ecological transition. This initiative is being carried out with the support of the Erasmus+ programme.
The project is based on two socially conscious cartoons by Sherif Arafa (Egypt) and Tjeerd Royaards (Netherlands), members of Cartooning for Peace. Through humour, satire and the power of imagery, their work enables environmental issues to be addressed in a direct, accessible and universal way.
As part of this initiative, a workshop was organised in late April in Brussels focusing on the environment and the effects of climate change, particularly heatwaves. The young participants were invited to reflect on the practical impacts of global warming on their daily lives, as well as on collective actions and possible forms of engagement to build more sustainable societies.
The aim was to use images as a tool for dialogue, reflection and engagement: to understand, respond, debate and create. By drawing on editorial cartoons and encouraging young people to get involved, this initiative makes environmental issues a living, tangible and accessible topic.
Broadcast on Trace TV from 30 May to 20 June, this initiative serves as a reminder that environmental protection is not a distant or abstract issue: it directly affects our bodies, our cities, our societies and our shared future.
Cartoon by Sherif Arafa (Egypt) – Cartooning for Peace
Cartoon by Tjeerd Royaards (Netherlands)
About the organisers
Européens Sans Frontières (ESF) is an organisation dedicated to promoting European citizenship and combating disinformation. It develops participatory projects that combine art, debate, education and the production of animated films with a strong social and civic focus.
To bring the editorial cartoons to life, ESF has teamed up with the animation studio IDside, renowned for its accessible and socially engaged artistic approach. Together, they have created six powerful animated shorts, each carrying a universal message, translated into several languages. Thanks to IDside’s expertise, the cartoons take on form, movement and voice, in a visual style that is both sensitive and striking, capable of resonating with an intergenerational audience.
Greentervention : The fight against global warming must be an integral part of European governments’ economic and political priorities: Greentervention is an association of volunteers driven by a sense of the climate emergency and the need for European economic, financial and social policies to achieve the objectives of a just transition towards carbon neutrality in the European Union and around the world.
PARTNERS
