Time flies when you're having fun! We have reached the half of 2019 and we can't be more thankful for everyone's seapport in the past months. From April to June of 2019, we have been discovering so much potential in individuals who are enabled to bring their advocacies into action through the Seastainable Grant and funding. On top of this, we have made a milestone by holding our first ever community event! Three Seastainable Grants & Projects were implemented across Indonesia, Philippines & Singapore. Not only that, Seastainable celebrated our first ever World’s Ocean Day with over 70 amazing individuals at A Poke Theory. Keep reading to find out what we’ve been up to.
Initiatives
World Ocean’s Day Celebration | June 8, 2019 | Singapore
Last June 8, we hosted a fun afternoon of conversations on conservation with A Poke Theory, Our Singapore Reefs, Edible Garden, and Zero Waste SG, as well as an exclusive screening with Our Seas Our Legacy’s second documentary feature called “Tiny Heroes of our Sea” over the most amazing poke bowls and the most amazing community. Plus we got to share our new favorite product: the Seastainable Collapsible Bowl!
During our first ever (!!) community event, we raised $500 SGD to Our Seas Our Legacy and $500 SGD to BruWILD for marine conservation! This was made possible by you, our seapporters who participated in our hashtag movement in social media and in our World Ocean’s Day event. These two organizations launched Tiny Heroes of our Seas, a documentary on the small unsung heroes of our ocean who play big roles in Brunei’s marine biodiversity. Let us all continue to support our friends from BruWILD: Brunei Natural History Society and Our Seas, Our Legacy by viewing their documentary, Tiny Heroes of our Sea. In case you missed the screening during our event, you can now view the film by clicking here: http://bit.ly/tinyHeroesOfOurSea
The Kint Story Collaboration
We celebrated our oceans in style for World Oceans Day-thanks to our collab with The Kint Story! Founded in 2019, Kint is a platform where we give preloved clothing a new lease of life. For the month of June, our partnership with The Kint Story enabled consumers to be more ethical when purchasing apparel and at the same time be able to ditch plastic bags with the Seastainable Tote as part of their purchase. Just like The Kint Story, we believe that we are able to love fashion in a sustainable and ethical way without the cost of harming our oceans and environment.
Projects
A-B-Seas Camp | April 6-8, 2019 | Calatagan, Batangas
Save Philippine Seas’s A-B-Seas Camp continues its pursuit on building a generation of proud and proactive citizens (or as they would like to call them, seatizens) by increasing the awareness and knowledge of the Filipinos on our marine environment’s status, issues, threats, and solutions. It’s not only an environmental education program, but an empowering one – which will teach the participants the skills that can be used for the pursuit of any advocacy.
Facilitated by the alumni of Sea and Earth’s Advocates (SEA) Camp, the A-B-Seas Camp this year was the biggest so far with 11 participants. A total of five (5) scholars were seapported by Seastainable Co. in developing their skills and knowledge to be leaders in their own communities. These scholars came from diverse backgrounds which they used in contributing to conservation. For three days and two nights, a mix of experiential learning activities including games, discussions, group activities, journaling, and outdoor activities, such as snorkeling, watching the sunset, and a dinner by the beach were enjoyed by the participants. Upon going home, participants were encouraged to be proactive by writing letters to leaders and by initiating or supporting more environmental initiatives in their own communities.
You can find the profiles of our scholars here.
Mabul Community Market Initiative | June 28, 2019 | Malaysia
Talk about partnering with communities? Just recently, Seastainable Co. championed the Mabul Community Market by supporting the alternative livelihoods of people in the island. The guests of Scuba Junkie have the option to purchase the Seally Hand Crocheted Marine Animals, instead of alternatives such as shells, preserved fish. The unsustainable souvenir market has paved its way in the must-haves of any traveler, often unethically sourced. Most of these souvenirs especially in the beach areas are outcomes of the marine wildlife trade, thus removing up to 30 million fish, 1.5 million live stony corals, and 10 million other invertebrates each year from the marine ecosystems across the world. The Mabul Community Market Initiative aims to change that. Through our partnership with the Mabul Community Market and Scuba Junkie, we are not just promoting a sustainable economy, but we are also providing the members of the community with higher earnings. Take Aija and Aina, both from Mabul and breadwinners of their own families, as inspirations. They make the Seally Hand Crocheted Marine Animals. Their crocheted nudibranch became their best seller and was inspired by one of their snorkeling activities. We continue to support the community’s efforts in conserving the environment by switching to creative alternatives. And we hope we are with you in this journey. So, what Seally Hand Crocheted Marine Animals are already under your care? Don’t forget to tag us!
Juara Turtle Project | Pahang, Malaysia
For almost a year, we have been continuously supporting their initiatives in providing safe hatcheries for sea turtles in Tioman Island, Malaysia. Through everyone’s continuous support for Seastainable, the eggs that were laid last March have finally hatched and we are able to send off 123 baby hawksbill turtles to shore. The funding provided was used to pay for the eggs, the egg collector's salary, the petrol cost, and other costs involved. JTP and the turtles are grateful for your support! To date, JTP now have total of 11 nests in their hatchery. 🐢
Seastainable Grantees
Over the past 6 months, we were able to identify and search for many passionate and talented individuals who are inspired to make a difference in their communities.
Read on to sea the new Seastainable Grant winners and what they have been up to!
Guimaras Teachers Training Program (INSET/IEC) | May 2-4, 2019 | Guimaras Island
Bryan Madera, an environmental advocate and has long been working on community-based projects, applied for this grant together with other local stakeholders to support the Information, Education & Communication (IEC) project of San Lorenzo, Guimaras Island.
In their hopes of increasing the knowledge on marine and environmental topics and on improving the environmental topic integration skills in classroom teaching, a two-day seminar workshop for the teaching and non-teaching staff of Dr. Catalino Gallego Nava Memorial High School was conducted. 47 educators immersed in learning activities like pre-tests, lectures, lesson plan writeshop and games. Outdoor activities were also conducted to provide the participants with holistic learning experience, some of which are MPA briefing, species identification, photowalk, and snorkeling activities. At the end of the seminar workshop, post-test revealed that there is an 87.41% increase on the level of knowledge of the participants. A total of $316 SGD was invested for this project for educators. Project implementers hope to monitor the participants on how they will implement these learnings in a classroom setting.
Project Balod Dos | June 22-23, 2019 | Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental
Guess what project surfed its way back to Dumaguete City this year? It’s Project Balod Dos! (Project Balod 2) Funded with $1,061.71 SGD, a total of 12 participants plunged in 2 days and 1 night of learning experience. Project Balod Dos was initiated to encourage participants to know more about the marine environment and at the same time making them realize the value of these natural resources.
Activities on Day 1 were lectures from various environmental leaders in their local community, workshops, and games. To guarantee the sustainability of this project, participants in this year’s implementation were asked to implement their own projects that share the same values with this project. During the night, participants engaged with mentoring sessions and finished off their projects for pitching. The following day, snorkeling activities and project pitching were conducted. The event finished off with encouraging messages from 2018 Bohol SEA Campers and Miss Earth 2015, Miss Angelia Ong. The project just gets better each year and organizers are hoping to continue this learning activity and encourage more youth to partake in marine conservation.
Plastic Waste Managament Plant Southwest Subma | Sumba Barat Daya, Indonesia
Hananto Darmawan continues his pursuit in providing his community with a Plastic Waste Management Plant. Within the span of his project implementation, he already conducted two sessions of ecobrick training with the youth. The first one was in collaboration with Dyatame Learning Group which was attended by 45 participants ranging from 7-13 years old. Around 30 ecobricks were made from this session. On the second implementation, 30 participants attended due to inclement weather condition. A total of 30 ecobricks 1.5 L in size and 30 ecobricks 600 mL in size were made. These ecobricks will be used to support building structures in his community.
And just recently, we’ve raised the fund to fill-in the lacking amount to help Hananto purchase his community’s own press recycling machine. With your continuous seapport, we hope to provide Hananto’s community with a seastainable change through this management plant as they still need to buy other supporting equipment. There are still more projects and grants swimming our way, so watch this space for more finspiring initiatives that we have helped execute.
We'd like to take this time to say a big THANK YOU again to all our seapporters for continuing to advocate for our seas with us at Seastainable. Stay tuned for more exciting projects swimming your way! To view the full reports of these projects, click here.
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