Bring the Ocean Alive for Children in South Africa

Dear Supporters,

Ocean in Motion is an initiative that was initially planned by a local Aquarium that we teamed up with to kick start and increase our impact! The Ocean is a plastic playground right now and it is in a state of emergency and if we don’t act now it will never recover. As you walk around many townships or local communities the vast amount of rubbish on the streets is unbelievable but even worse is the amount of ‘cheap’ single use plastics are still being used. The reason for this is lack of awareness and education - this is the master key to the survival of our beautiful ocean. 

We have activated and revamped this as a new project in 2020 and although COVID has delayed our outreach we are ready to go as soon as schools reopen. In 2019 this project engaged with 50,757 school students from under resourced township schools, introducing and interacting these students with the ocean often for the first time. Although they might stay only a few kilometers from the ocean so many children in Africa are unaware of what is happening. Our Ocean in Motion project is an outreach project and a joint educational project with a local Aquarium where we visit under resourced schools to run ocean awareness and interactive sessions and then those that show an interest can join a short course or internship that is sponsored by this project. 

In 2019 we have 433 children attending our Marine Science academy and distributed 13,252 environmentally themed books. It costs us around £9 a student to bring them to the Aquarium and attend a curriculum based marine lesson or puppet show for the younger generation. Our Marine Science Academy is for Grade 5 and 6 (aged 13/14) and is a 4 day course that is also looking to be converted online since COVID, this course is a great tool to building youth ambassadors to educate and promote ocean issues back in their community. Students of Grade 7-9 can join our Human Footprints 5 day course or Career in marine 5 day course and GR 10-12 we can offer Young Biologist Volunteer Course for 6 days or the FET Oceanography course. All these courses are essential to helping youths from under resourced communities access the education to become ambassadors for change to help fight the pollution of the ocean, these courses cost around £150 per student and this is why your donations can give these children a break in the poverty cycle to become educated and make a change. 

Our Ocean in Motion aims to engage 80,000 young people in 2020 and this includes our outreach bus where Aquarium staff and our conservation team go into schools and community events within townships to run educational workshops and hands on experiences, we have secured a pledge from a grant funder of £2,500 matched funded to help us get our outreach vehicle on the road and visiting schools up and down the African coastline. We need your help to raise £2,500 for this project over the next 2 months so we can have these donations matched. 

We believe this project is urgently important as the amount of rubbish and single use plastics found in townships is alarming and many of these are close to our ocean. The only way to stop this is through the power of education. 

Help us educate the children and fight the war on plastic together! 

Thank You!

With Gratitude,

Ocean in Motion