Objectives

 

The project aims at addressing the following objectives

• To increase the interest of youth in pursuing a Blue Career as a means to tackle youth unemployment;

• To explore the positive impact of the ocean for the physical and mental health of youth;

• To create accessible sea opportunities for all youth with particular focus on youth with disabilities;

• To promote sea and beach sports as a vehicle to enhance the well-being and the physical and mental health of young people;

• To raise awareness on the necessity of strategising actions towards the environmental protection and the responsible exploitation of the ocean;

• To highlight the potential of the methodology of the Structured Democratic Dialogue in discussions among young people and policy makers;

• To develop a Policy Paper summarising the outcomes of the project dialogues aiming at contributing towards policy reform for youth.

Activities

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The project will be structured on the basis of 9 physical events (4 participatory dialogues, 3 consultation workshops, 1 conference, 1 craft workshop) with the engagement of 330 young people, policy/decision makers and blue economy professionals as follows:

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1) Dialogue: Accessible beaches: The goal is to identify the challenges and barriers young people and more importantly youth with disabilities face in order to get access to the beach and explore measures to mitigate these challenges

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2) Dialogue: Sea, sea sports and sea activities for the mental health of youth: The dialogue will explore the reasons behind the low interest of youth to join sea and beach sports and activities. Having identified these factors, the participants will elaborate on actions at a personal, societal, economic, educational and political level to boost youth participation in sea sports and activities as a vehicle to enhance their mental health

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3) Dialogue: Promotion of Blue Careers: Having the 3rd largest merchant fleet in Europe, Cyprus is a leading force in the shipping industry offering tremendous opportunities for occupation in the sector (e.g. management, general crew). Despite these unbeatable facts, youth have limited knowledge on the potentials of pursuing a Blue career. The dialogue aims to create a common understanding among youth in Blue Careers and identify actionable measures to facilitate the promotion of marine and maritime career paths and job opportunities to youth

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4) Dialogue: Ocean conservation: The objective of this dialogue is to identify actionable measures to protect the ecosystem of our seas from the threats posed to it deriving from pollution, climate change, human activities, coastal development etc. During the dialogue, the participants will explore the threats and then navigate through actions to facilitate the conservation of our seas

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5) Conference: The conference will become the hub for the communication and dissemination of the Policy Paper developed by the project

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6) Youth consultation: The importance of the ocean: ocean: The workshop will bring together a researcher (policy maker) and youth in order to identify why the ocean is important and explore how the research and scientific advancements can secure the sustainable exploitation of the ocean.

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7) Youth consultation: Sea a lot of your horizons: This consultation workshop will bring together a representative from the Shipping Deputy Ministry with young people in order to provide their consultation on issues relevant to the Ministry and the youth community in Cyprus in a way that the youth’s input will be taken into account in future strategies designed by the Ministry (e.g. promotion of blue career for young students, incentives for beach sports, blue economy)

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8) Wooden boat craft workshop: The workshop will give the opportunity to youth to construct a wooden boat as a mechanism to acquire skills in ocean literacy. In addition, it will engage the participants in discussions with the experts to identify measures and activities to promote ocean literacy to children and youth in a more funny, creative and entertaining way in order for them to experience the impact of engaging with the sea

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9) “Youth meet the Industry”: The goal is to give the opportunity to young people to discuss with shipping industry representatives measures to promote ocean literacy and blue economy to young people

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The project will engage a total of 330 participants including young people aged between 13 and 30, policy and decision makers as well as professionals operating in the field of blue economy.​

 

The dialogues will be facilitated with the methodology of the Structured Dialogue and will be organized in coastal areas, on Stand Up Paddles (SUPs) and on sailing boats.

 

A Policy Paper will be developed as the main tangible outcomes of the project and be used for policy reform in the field of ocean literacy for youth.