Secondary school students from different countries are reporting multimedia stories on issues of interest to them as part of the inaugural PEARL Online Journalism Festival. Their reports will be posted here on July 1, 2009.

In the meantime, here's a look at what they are working on:

Politics and Accountability
Teachers in Brasilia, Brazil, walk out for more pay, an election heats up in British Columbia, Canada, leaving students wondering how their education will change, and students in the US are forced to watch and speculate as their new president decides the fate of their education. All around the world, students' educational development is being affected by older generations' politics. This story article will show the often ignored teenager's perspective on whether their leaders are helping or hurting them with their respective education policies. 

Social networking and its impact on youngsters
The Internet is growing tremendously and social networking has now become a powerful tool in this digital world. This story will cover all the factors that are affecting teens in their social networking world. Interviews with youngsters will cover how these sites help them in their daily life and how much they are concerned about privacy issues.

Water usage and deforestation
This story will take a comparative look at the destruction of forests and how this affects water resources in Uzbekistan, Kenya and Moldova. It will also examine what youth in these countries are doing to save forests and water resources.

Solid waste disposal
Unattractive sights of garbage strewn on streets, roads, parks and other public places are a common observance in various countries. This story takes an in-depth look at how youth of the affected countries consider this problem of disposal of solid refuse; its causes, relevance, consequences, and possible solutions. It will include pictures that illustrate disposal problems in Pakistan and Brazil, views of the youth of the two countries, and an exclusive video that highlights the otherwise overlooked, but appalling extent of the problem as seen on one occasion.

Child labor
Do you know where your T-shirt came from? Your tennis shoes? Quite often the most basic things in our lives were built with the tiny hands of a child laborer with no family, no education and no future. Read this story to find out more about child labor in Ghana, Brazil, US and the Philippines, with stories of several child laborers and even interviews with a few.

Come back soon to read the complete stories!