This group, in partnership with the indigenous people of Haruku Island, will make a documentary about how they are adapting to climate change. SOA funds were geared toward production and time to conduct interviews and film ongoing issues and initiatives in Haruku Island, and they will also host a live-event on the island to highlight the stories of indigenous women and youth.

This project helps tackle the problem of disposable plastic by offering a solution. Here we noticed that almost no reusable cups are proposed and the main bars have a lot of customers with a tremendous amount of plastic cups distributed and then discarded, especially on the weekend. We would like to offer a solution with reusable cups that will be personalized with drawings of sea animals made by art students. The idea is that the public will feel more responsible for their reusable cup if they are personalized.

This project seeks to engage wider audiences in the German-speaking world by making use of the social media graphics and material already developed by SOA, translating them into German, and engaging a social media expert to develop a sound communications strategy to engage specific target audiences.

This project is restoring Bahamian coral reefs and providing the next generation with tools to act as ocean stewards. The Bahamas Coral Innovation Hub located in South Eleuthera is a collaborative research and restoration initiative between The Cape Eleuthera Institute, Perry Institute for Marine Science, and The Nature Conservancy, aiming to reverse the decline of Bahamian reefs. They use the latest photogrammetry technology and methodologies to monitor coral restoration success and disseminate findings, providing information about the resiliency of coral genotypes local to Eleuthera.

Bawah Anambas Foundation actively restores the damaged coral reefs in Kiabu, Anambas. In 2020, they installed 40 coral spiders and planted 700 corals with SOA funding. This year, they plan to increase the percentage of coral cover via transplantation, re-establish fish habitat using coral spiders, and create 6 coral table nurseries.

Today, the Belarusian government considers actions that help achieve SDG14 to be irrelevant for the country, since Belarus has no access to the sea. However, young people disagree and do consider the challenge of protecting the ocean environment to be relevant for Belarus (MyWorld, 2020). As part of the Youth Initiative for Sustainable Development, we hold 5 informal lessons in 5 districts of the Minsk region (Belarus), which tell young people aged 14-20 about the problem of pollution of the world’s ocean. The final interactive event in Minsk is conducted in the Global Jam format, where young people come together and develop projects and solutions to the problems in Belarus pertaining to SDG 14.

This grant supports Project QR restore in seeking formal registration of their nonprofit, and in taking the first steps to restore the coral reefs off the coast of Quintana Roo by implementing a PADI Coral Reef conservation training course for local Mayan conservationists they've partnered with, as well as SOA Mexico hub leaders.

This project, affiliated with SOA Chile, and led by 3 project leaders from different Latin American countries, seeks to create an interactive ebook for children and youth. The book will cover the topics learned in SOA's La Academia in an accessible way for the target audience. The ultimate goal is to change the way in which youth gain knowledge about the ocean as an ecosystem and that they understand the impact that humans have on this ecosystem.

 Timna Varela (35) is establishing the first officially accredited Environmental Education Program within the Bay Islands of Punta Gorda, Honduras, aiming to educate members of the fishing community on marine conservation to establish a culture of sustainable stewardship.