We are a youth-driven storytelling movement for happy, healthy fishing communities.

Coast 2 Coast offers small-scale fishing communities audiovisual tools, communication skills, and digital platforms for local kids and their families to explore and share their ocean-based identities with the world.

 

Our multidisciplinary team facilitates photography, photojournalism, stop-motion animation, street art, murals, filmmaking and other "edutainment" workshops for students, teachers and families in small-scale fishing villages to express their ideas, needs, and desires with a global audience through impact storytelling.

 

Through their audiovisual narratives, youth and families engage intergovernmental and organizations, think tanks, and foundations. Their stories are picked up by international and provincial news agencies. National governments are inclined or invited to respond and meet the needs expressed through legislation that safeguards communities and their natural aquatic environments. We work with community members to pitch solutions and find implementation partners.We work relentlessly for those dependent on healthy seas and sustainable fisheries to be represented in global discussions that determine our ocean’s future. 

 

ABOUT US

For the past six years, we've immersed ourselves in seaside communities from Mexico to India experiencing climate change, marine degradation, and overdevelopment. We've seen the remarkable, the tragic, and the auspicious through the eyes of local youth in fishing villages on the verge of collapse. We believe in the power of stories  as a bridge to reach people and emotionally connect. Beyond the facts, we provide a pathway for the faces, names, and characters who depend on the ocean the most for their survival to share their side of the story before it's too late.

 

WHY?

Active, vibrant coastal communities indicate a thriving ocean. Without healthy seas, the planet cannot support life on Earth. Today, seaside villages are collapsing under unprecedented global and local stressors. Our goal is to address the ocean’s collapse by humanizing the issue, enabling neglected voices to join the conversation and speak up for their human rights, cultural heritage, and indispensable relationship with our oceans.

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One in 10 people rely on fish for their economic and nutritional security. Most live in the Tropical Majority countries located in the Global South. Small-scale and artisanal fisheries act as buffers against basic human insecurities such as hunger and extreme poverty. Fish-dependent families are on the frontlines — the coastlines — of ocean conservation and rural community development. Yet, they are often sidelined from critical dialogues between international environmental and economic actors who frame the strategies for the ocean's future. The problem is that current agendas undervalue human security objectives, and in doing so erode cultural heritage, gender relations, social capital, ecosystem services, human rights and the essential requisite of providing both livelihoods and affordable, nutrient-packed food for those who count on it the most. 

SUPPORT

Support us by making a one-time donation to fund our future workshops and help us reach more vulnerable coastal communities. Coast 2 Coast is an initiative of Beyond the Surface International, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and your donation is tax-deductible within the guidelines of U.S. law.

CONTACT US

 
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