News 

SSE Airtricity and Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful, Eco-Schools are delighted to announce the third year of the Global Wind Awards. Schools from across Northern Ireland are invited to nominate their Eco-Committee and Operation Energy projects for the annual awards ceremony held at Slieve Kirk Wind Farm in June.

The Awards have been a great success in past years with pupils enjoying the opportunity to get up close to, and even inside, the wind turbines and learn all about wind power and renewable energy. New to the Awards this year is a Family Energy Champions category which invites pupils to investigate what they do at home to save energy and involve family members in making a creative poster highlighting their top energy saving tips.

Dundonald Primary School have taken part in SSE Airtricity’s Operation Energy, Power Down Day, for the past two years, saving over 20% of their energy usage on the day. They have just achieved their first Eco-Schools internationally recognised Green Flag Award and are excited by the prospect of having their energy saving efforts recognised in the Global Wind Awards.

Visiting the school Josh Bradley, Communications Manager, from SSE Airtricity said: “The pupils at Dundonald have an infectious enthusiasm for learning about energy, so it’s great that their efforts have now been recognised with an Eco-Schools Green Flag. At SSE Airtricity, we’re delighted to be powering the Global Wind Awards for a third year. The commitment shown by teachers and pupils across Northern Ireland to the Eco-Schools programme deserves to be celebrated and rewarded. The event itself has been a roaring success in the last two years, and I’m sure it will be even bigger and better this time around.”

Eco-Schools Northern Ireland have cause to celebrate this year as they mark their 20th anniversary and being the first country in the world to achieve 100% registration. SSE Airtricity have been principal sponsors of Eco-Schools in Northern Ireland for the past four years and actively support the energy topic with their free Operation Energy teaching resources.

Carmel Fyfe, Eco-Schools Manager, Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful said:

“The Global Wind Awards are a special opportunity to recognise the dedication of Eco-Schools to looking after the environment. It is clear that Eco-Schools are extremely interested in learning more about energy efficiency and working with SSE Airtricity is a really great way to help schools with this.”

Full details of how to enter the SSE Airtricity and Eco-Schools Global Wind Awards can be found on the Eco-Schools website in the Competitions page or contact eco-schools@keepnorthernirelandbeautiful.org. The closing date for entries is Friday 8th May.

Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful is asking community groups and individuals from all over Northern Ireland to register to take part in the BIG Spring Clean. Together we can all do one small thing, such as cleaning up, to show that we live here and we love here.

The charity aims to build a national movement for change through the civic pride campaign, Live Here Love Here. Live Here Love Here draws together Government, local authorities, Tourism Northern Ireland, community groups and individual volunteers. Together, they are forming an unstoppable force for change on litter by cleaning grot spots, by sprucing up overgrown spaces and by changing attitudes to make littering unacceptable.

Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful's BIG Spring Clean brings a focus on litter during the month of April, enabling businesses, schools, community groups and individuals to unite in common cause to clean up and to Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful.

In 2014 The BIG Spring Clean:

• Saw a staggering 105,819 people lift litter – more than double the amount of volunteers from the previous year.
• Over 127 tonnes of waste was removed from our neighbourhoods, beaches and countryside.

Ian Humphreys, Chief Executive of Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful said: “We look forward to another exciting BIG Spring Clean, we can all get out and do our bit to show that we live here and we love here. We’re very proud of the hard work all of the volunteers put in and it is truly excellent to see that local environmental quality is being improved with the support of schools, volunteers, sports groups and local businesses within the community.”

Dr Humphreys added: “We live in a great country, with some fantastic communities and world class open spaces, but too often the carelessness of others means that litter plagues our environment. Our BIG Spring Clean is the opportunity for everyone in Northern Ireland to join the fightback against litter.

“We want to call on everyone who lives here and who loves here to join us. Let’s not pretend that we can ignore the scale of the litter problem we face. We can all play a part in cleaning up our treasured local spaces by taking part in a BIG Spring Clean.”

You can register your BIG Spring Clean online at www.liveherelovehere.org and when you register your event online we will send you out a FREE clean up kit to help with your clean up.

Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful works to make Northern Ireland a cleaner and better place in which to live. We are involved in a range of environmental projects and activities. These include making people aware of the impact of litter on our countryside and beaches and tackling the problems associated with graffiti and dog fouling.

In support of our work, BBC Northern Ireland recently aired an appeal on our behalf. View clips available on the BBC website, where you can make a donation to support our important work.

If you would prefer to donate your time and experience, why not get involved with volunteering? Our new campaign Live Here Love Here seeks to help people make the place they live into a place that they love. We aim to do this by supporting volunteer efforts to clean up and improve shared spaces, and built pride within the community.

Visit the Live Here Love Here website for more details.

Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful’s statement on funding

The news that Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful’s funding from the Department of the Environment has been cut by 30% is disappointing for the organisation and for the sector in Northern Ireland.

We recognise that we are only one of a large number of environmental groups facing huge cuts to our budgets.

The cuts experienced by Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful will certainly have an impact on our ability to deliver our vision of making Northern Ireland a cleaner and more pleasant place in which to live. Through the cuts, we have lost and will be losing a number of posts across the organisation. However, our commitment to delivering on our projects and programmes is unwavering and we will be continuing with the great work which underpins Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful.

Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful is working with other NGOs, the Environment Committee, NIEA and others to ensure the Minister and his officials fully understand the impact these cuts will have on the ability of the NGO sector to deliver a multitude of government and international obligations, and ultimately on the state of the NI environment.