The Hellenic Marine Environment Protection Association - HELMEPA is a model open participatory platform that pioneers in the promotion of values associated with sustainable development and sustainability, in order to protect the marine and coastal environment and enhance safety at sea.
This year we celebrate 40 years of multidimensional action and collective offer. Since its establishment, HELMEPA has placed special emphasis to the new generation, through HELMEPA Junior Program (5-12 years old children), Cadets Program (12-18 years old) and more recently with the creation of Youth Ambassadors Program (young people 15+ years old).
HELMEPA’s scientific and specialized staff designs innovative programs that raise environmental awareness starting from childhood (5 years and over) with the emblematic HELMEPA Seagull as an ally, as well as environmental exhibitions (mobile - permanent), beach and underwater cleanups -collecting on an annual basis 200,000 items- and many innovative actions of public awareness and engegement, throughout Greece, which record immediate positive results for the health of our seas.
Specifically from 2022, we design and organize sustainable development workshops (Sustainability Labs) for all our Members, the educational community and especially young people, throughout Greece. The aim of the workshops is to empower the new generation, through information, understanding, involvement and joint action for a sustainable future.
The United Nations have declared 2021-2030 as the "Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development", with the aim of enhancing the sustainable management of the oceans and coasts for the benefit of mankind. Through the cooperation and exchange of know-how of all stakeholders related to the sea, this decade will serve as a tool to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In this context, seas and oceans training and understanding the interaction between humans and the sea (Ocean Literacy) are expected to play a key role.
HELMEPA has been offering the HELMEPA Junior Program to the educational community since 1993, while in the last 3 years we have developed a new Program for the Seas and Oceans, inspired by the United Nations Goal 14 for Sustainable Development. Climate change, pollution, overfishing and other environmental challenges require immediate solutions and we must all show by our actions what future we want for next generations and in what condition the seas and oceans must be, in order to be able to support this future. Through the program we invest in understanding the challenges and the concepts in general, without projecting fear, disaster and pessimism. In this context, the program is set up to help the younger generation understand the situation and focus on directions and solutions, that is, on how to manage, mitigate, and solve.
Program structure and its innovative features
The Program is divided into 4 thematic sections. In the 1st section the members of the program get acquainted with the marine world, in the 2nd they learn what it offers us, in the 3rd the dangers it faces are mentioned and in the 4th the ways in which we can protect it are suggested.
Many of the proposed activities aim to involve parents, relatives, friends and members of the local community in order to widely spread the message of marine environment protection.
The Program offers modern educational tools to the educators. Each teacher enrolling in the program has access to the educational material consisting of worksheets with information and suggested activities, such as experiments, games and constructions that combine education with entertainment (edutainment). The program also offers the digital educational series "Dive into Knowledge". The first video is available at the hyperlink https://youtu.be/ShNVTF6iedg. Specially designed in children’s language, the animations aim to approach in a playful way various environmental concepts and to offer environmental knowledge to the children throughout the country. With the help of technology these videos can reach every home, every teacher, every parent and student who has internet access.
It also provides students with the opportunity to express themselves creatively by participating in the Panhellenic Drawing Competition with a theme that changes every year. This year's theme is "HELMEPA Seagull: 40 years NO garbage, NO plastic in our seas".
In addition to raising environmental awareness, the program also aims to cultivate children’s soft skills, which are so necessary and valuable in the competitive society we live in. Such skills are cooperation, problem solving, empathy, creativity, social responsibility etc.
All the tools of the program are offered free of charge and without exclusions in the educational community of Primary Education, public and private Kindergartens & Primary Schools throughout the country. For public schools there is an additional provision to cover expenses related to the activities of the program.
As a reward for the efforts of the program members, student representatives and teachers from the country’s 13 regions join the Annual Board of Representatives Meeting in order to transfer their experiences from their participation in the program, their environmental concerns and their own visions for the need to protect the seas. During their Council, children, through the design thinking technique, reach a joint resolution for the protection of the marine environment which is announced to the wider society, while the teachers are committed to undertake an environmental action in their region.
