CARDIGAN youth charity Area 43 has launched a social media creative corner and wants to hear from young people aged 16-25.

“We welcome a creative piece of writing on monthly issue-based topics, send in short stories, poetry, letters, news articles, speeches ... anything to convey your thoughts and feelings on each month’s chosen issue,” said Rachel, a youth support worker at Area 43.

"We want to encourage young people to express themselves in a creative way, while thinking about the issues that may impact them in their community.”

Last month’s topic was "Climate Crisis" to which the organisation received a great response.

Below is the entry by Amber entitled ‘The Plastic Ocean’:

Today I see the world through the eyes of a fish. I am swift and agile in this ocean; my friends and I race the waves of the huge sea beast. But we are in danger, a danger we cannot fight. It starves us, suffocates us and kills us mercilessly. It is everywhere at once, in everything, we cannot escape it. You know what it is. Plastic.

Now, I am a seal. Graceful in water, lumbering on land. It is not just the micro plastics getting us, it is the ropes of the horrible stuff that never breaks. It wraps itself around our pups so tightly that they never see the day they are a year old.

Now, I am a gull. Not even birds are safe. The fish we and our chicks eat are full of plastic, our nests are made of the stuff and we get tangled and are unable to fly because of it.

Now, I am a coral reef. The hub of the sea. Plastic chemicals are killing us, diseases from it are spreading among us. If we die, so do the fish, the seals, the gulls and many, many more. The waters would be dead without us.

Now, I am plankton. We are the structure that holds all the life in the sea together, we are the scaffold, the plot, the safety net of all things. If we vanish, there will be nothing.

This is only a fraction of a quarter of what is happening to our world. Plastic is not a fugatious thing, it lasts forever, everywhere, in everything. It will not do to have it destroying the oceans, the land, the planet. These creatures affected cannot speak to us, so be a voice for them. Listen to their cry for help.

June is Pride month, so the topic is all things Pride. The email address to send entries to is share@area43.co.uk. Area 43 will publish suitable entries on Facebook at the end of every month.