Prada Group and UNESCO-IOC Announce Winners of Sea Beyond Second Edition

Prada Group and UNESCO-IOC have announced the winners of the second edition of the Sea Beyond project at a press conference moderated by marine advocate Patricia Furtado de Mendonça. The jury composed of Enzo Barracco, photographer and climate artist; Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group Head of Corporate Social Responsibility; Fabien Cousteau, aquanaut, oceanographic explorer and environmental advocate; Kerstin Forsberg, marine scientist and social entrepreneur; Valentina Gottlieb, environmental influencer and activist; Vladimir Ryabinin, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and Assistant Director General of UNESCO; and Hugo Vau, athlete, ocean explorer and surfer.

The group awarded the three winning schools of the international contest at the conclusion of the educational cycle as follows:

First place: MaArt - Newton College, Lima (Peru).

Second place: Seaweed Aquaculture - Shanghai High School International Division, Shanghai (China).

Third place: Video Game-Sea Beyond - Marcelline Tommaseo, Milan (Italy).

Prizes will be used by the schools to invest in the purchase of educational materials.

The second educational programme, which started in autumn 2021 and ended last spring, involved ten secondary schools in the following countries: Brazil, China, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, United Kingdom and South Africa.

Each school took part in a series of webinars led by UNESCO-IOC experts to explore the ten challenges of the United Nations Ocean Decade. The students responded actively and with great enthusiasm, establishing a network of collaborative relationships on a global scale.

“For this second edition, we felt the need to thank all the students with an event able to celebrate the commitment that they continue to show towards the SEA BEYOND project. The international Ocean Conference in Lisbon seemed to us the perfect frame to discuss together, once again, an issue that is very close to our hearts: protecting the sea and its resources,” said Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group Head of Corporate Social Responsibility.

“In these first two years of the SEA BEYOND project we have achieved important results but we are all convinced that this initiative still has great potential to express and we want to show it. The jurors and all the Sea Beyonders are already a big family. We know that we are only at the beginning of this path in partnership with UNESCO-IOC. This year we have decided to award three schools, but I would like to emphasise the fact that all participants are actually winners. It is only by working with the new generations that we can achieve the goals set by the Ocean Decade.”

“While UN agencies, countries, NGOs, private sector representatives and ocean advocates all gather here in Lisbon to chart the path to a healthy ocean, we must look to the work and commitment of young people from all around the world. This second edition of the SEA BEYOND project showed again that no student is too young to make the difference,” said Vladimir Ryabinin, IOC Executive Secretary.

The event is part of the official calendar of side events at the UN Ocean Conference 2022, taking place in Lisbon from 27 June to 1 July 2022.