One of the activities of the Public Center for Environment and Sustainable Development is to inform citizens about public, civil, political initiatives, signals, irregularities that affect the environment and sustainable development. This happens through the platform ecovarna.info. You can also contribute to this activity. You do not have to be a professional reporter to do so.
If you have an idea and implement a civic initiative/action, attend a presentation of a project, an event affecting the environment, witness an irregularity affecting nature and sustainable development, write to us at: ecovarna.info@gmail.com!
If you are a member of our Viber, email or Facebook group, you will receive information about upcoming meetings, events, initiatives that reach us and in which you can join and report for our website. What we expect from you is, if you have attended, to send us feedback, brief information about the event. It will be published on the Ecovarna.info platform. This way each of you can become a reporter of Ecovarna.info.
We offer you this “Helper” to facilitate you in reporting events for online platforms. We have prepared for you a series of questions that you need to answer in order to create your report (keeping a chronology of answers is optional):
Who organizes/performs the event?
When will it take place/has it taken place?
What happened/will happen? What is the event about?
Where did/will it happen?
The answers to these four questions should constitute the first one or two sentences of your news story. This is the so-called introduction. The shorter/simpler the sentences, the better you will be understood. If you have succeeded in piquing the reader’s interest, he/she will also read any extended/additional information you may give about the event. It should generally answer the questions How? and Why? In this part it is good to provide information about:
Why is the event taking place? What is the occasion/reasons?
How many people attended the event? Were there/invited special/notable guests?
What were/will be the main issues/topics raised?
Were decisions taken/proposed and what were they (e.g. petitions, petitions, next meetings)?
Was evidence, research results provided for the claims made?
Were links to online platforms and materials provided (attach them)?
Anything else that impressed you about the way the event was run.
IMPORTANT! Be sure to take photos/video of the event.
Send materials – news, photo, video – to ecovarna.info@gmail.com with the subject line “to be published”. Remember, if you have received materials or presentations or their links, to attach them.
See narachnik for more about the features and opportunities provided by online media, and recommendations for creating publications for them.
Here is an example of a news text from an event:
A documentary about Varna Lake, “The Mirror”, was premiered by the Public Center for Environment and Sustainable Development on October 6 at the “Consciousness 1926” Community Center in Beloslav. More than 30 participants in the meeting watched with interest the film by Viliana Ivanova and Daniela Georgieva. After the screening there was a short discussion between the attendees and the authors of the film. The oldest person in the room turned out to be a poet. His wife read through the audience the poem “Gebedjan Crabs”. The facts shared by the owner of the glass factory, Danko Kalchev, whose family has more than 250 years of local history, made a strong impression.
Despite the good mood, the participants of the meeting did not hide their concern about the overall environmental situation and the impact of the Devnya factories. The general pessimism was that the famous Gebejan crayfish, an indicator of the cleanliness of the lake, would never return.
The presence of reed beds in the lakes and their role in water purification was discussed as a very important aspect of environmental protection. It was hoped that the Municipality of Beloslav, which owns a large part of the reed beds, would never sell them but would include their conservation as a major means of dealing with water pollution.
Participants agreed that the film could be used in the education system. The authors promised to go back to the originally intended format and split the film into three parts, making it easier to watch online. A premiere in Varna is expected soon.
The entire film can also be viewed on ecovarna.info’s YouTube video channel.
The meeting with the public and the film were realized under the project “Varna Lake – a mirror of the ecological state of the region”, funded by the largest socially engaged initiative “You and Lidl for a better life” in partnership with the Foundation Workshop for Civic Initiatives and the Bulgarian Donor Forum.
Ilian Iliev
We look forward to your news! Be an act