G7’s Veronique Fyfe the brainchild behind “When I Grow Up” book

2nd September 2021

     

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G7 Renewable Energies Head of Environment, Veronique Fyfe, was instrumental in the launch of a new educational book by WindEurope developed together with the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) titled: "When I grow Up". Illustrated by local artist Chantal Swiegers, the book is aimed at inspiring and educating children about clean energy and is the brainchild of G7's Veronique Fyfe.

The book is a collaboration with Yamina Guidoum and Malgosia Bartosik from WindEurope,  Philippa Nuttall Jones, editor of the Energy Monitor, Joyce Lee, Head of Policy and Projects at the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) and Veronique Fyfe. It details 21 inspiring stories from people working in clean energy, each telling their own story about how and why they came to work in the clean energy sector and why they are passionate about it.

Early in 2020, when Veronique was appointed South Africa’s Global Ambassador for the GWEC Women in Wind Global Leadership Program, she discussed an idea with her colleagues to produce a follow-up book on WindEurope's "Let the Wind Blow" released in 2019. “Let the wind blow” is a children's book about climate change, that since its first publication has now been translated in 30 languages including Setswana, isiXhosa and Afrikaans.

Veronique and her colleagues, when they first met, shared their passion for education – including developing teacher resources and reaching young talent from an early age. “The yearlong collaboration included many zoom calls and discussions on what the purpose of the book would be and how to best tackle gender norms while educating the youth on renewable energy careers. 73 children from across the world contributed to questions and what they would like to see in the book”, said Veronique.

WindEurope’s Malgosia Bartosik said that “With LearnWind and the book ’When I Grow Up’ we want to show the wide range of job opportunities in wind energy. We want to inspire the talents of tomorrow to join our industry and help shape the future of energy generation. The book portrays men and women working in clean energy around the world. We hope that these stories will encourage young people to consider similar careers, regardless of where they are from, what their interests are and whether they are girls or boys. Of the 1.2 million people working in wind energy globally, just over one fifth are women today. Despite some progress on workforce diversity and gender balance much remains to be done to even the playing field for women and tap into their talents and ideas”.

Veronique Fyfe commented, "The purpose of the book was to showcase the variety of careers available in ever-growing renewable energy industry, outside of the typical career paths. I am so excited about the value this book can add to the youth of today and decision-makers of tomorrow. This book coupled with the book “Let the Wind blow” brings to the forefront the value of climate awareness starting from early childhood through to pre-teens which coincides with subject selection and career choices. Since the first inspiration sparked in our minds, I had no idea how the book would grow and how enriched I would be by the experience of this collaboration. I hope that the parents, teachers, and students in our country will use the resources and be inspired to peruse a career in renewable energy. Much has been done to break down gender norms in the industry and I hope that this will help instil a sense of gender equality in the future. In the coming weeks, there will be a dedicated website for “When I grow up” and we hope to continually add new inspiring stories over time and have the book translated into many more languages. This is just the beginning.”

LearnWind features two children's books, wind energy teaching resources, a series of Q&A videos where kids put wind energy experts, CEOs and others in the hot seat, basics of wind technology and more. Find the book and all other free educational material here: https://windeurope.org/about-wind/learnwind/.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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