Engaging Youth in Small-Scale Fishing Villages through
Awe-Inspiring Learning Experiences for EPIC Futures
1. Youth Leadership in Fishing Communities for Blue Justice, Equitable Seafood Systems, Health, Climate Action, Gender Equity, Improved Local Governance, and Sustainable Development
2. Place-Responsive "Edutainment" for Conservation, Cultural Heritage, and Career Development with Students and Teachers in Fishing Villages Near Natural Protected Areas
3. Rural Innovation through Youth Action Research, Transmedia Storytelling, and Intergenerational Exchanges for Educational Transformation and Enhanced Livelihood Opportunities
From coast to coast, our nonprofit facilitates playful workshops, programs, and festivals with rural schools and local educational projects in fishing communities that focus on children’s situated experiences within local contexts that include materials, places, and nonhuman others.
The challenge:
Small-scale fisheries (SSF) account for 50% of global fish catches. The sector also employs 90% of the world’s capture fishers and fish workers — about 500 million people. That’s roughly the population of the USA, Canada, and Mexico combined! And half of those people in the SSF sector are women. SSF provide a critical source of protein for billions, support local economies in coastal, lake, and riverside communities, and serve as a center for identity, culture, and connection to wild nature. Despite their importance, many SSF communities remain marginalized. Often located in remote areas with limited access to markets, healthcare, education, and social services, these communities face significant challenges, including declining fish populations, habitat destruction, and governance shaped by capitalism, neoliberal seafood industries, and colonial legacies. These pressures erode socio-ecological relationships and leave young people disconnected and uncertain about their futures in a changing climate and industrializing world. Rural education systems, hindered by inadequate infrastructure and urban-focused curricula, often fail to engage youth as active contributors to their communities. Many young people migrate to urban centers for better opportunities, disrupting community dynamics and leading to a loss of biocultural knowledge. This exodus creates a recruitment crisis, leaving aging populations to sustain services, cultural heritage, and political influence. It also leaves fishing communities vulnerable to external exploitation. What becomes of a fishing village without fish or villagers? We doubt a Marine Protected Area. This global trend threatens the sustainability of SSF communities and raises concerns about the industrialization of depopulated areas, further endangering marine and freshwater conservation. To secure the future of SSF communities, young people need education that connects them to their built and natural environments, inspires their aspirations, supports the well-being of their villages, and drives rural innovation for sustainable futures.
Our Approach:
By weaving investigation with imagination and immersion, we engage young learners and rural educators in small-scale fishing villages to explore their social-ecological surroundings and build caring relationships through the power of enchantment for fishful futures. Through youth action research (investigation) and participatory audiovisual storytelling (imagination) approaches, we support students in gathering, illustrating, and mobilizing intergenerational knowledge for health, food, and conservation in the form of their own professional stop-motion animations, photo series, murals, comics, films, maps, and more. We use ocean play such as surfing, swimming, and snorkeling along with community-led marine monitoring tools (immersion) to cultivate inner-outer strength and meaningful relationships with self, peers, community, and the aquatic environment through experimental learning. We support young people in shaping sustainable futures that fulfill their aspirations while nurturing the well-being of their rural fishing villages.
We address the under-explored intersection of youth, fisheries, and rural education in SSF communities facing complex environmental changes and governance challenges. Despite their critical role in sustaining these communities, few fisheries policies effectively focus on youth engagement. Our transdisciplinary project takes a Positive Youth Development approach, emphasizing strengths to co-create and facilitate awe-inspiring, place-responsive curricula.
LatesT Workshop:
Coast 2 Coast (C2C) Workshops last one to two weeks, engaging one to two fishing communities.
Lobitos, Peru | "Pelicans vs. oil spill"
Investigation: Seabirds
Imagination: Narration and Animation
Language: Spanish
Local Partner: WAVES Lobitos
Funders: American Bird Conservancy
Participants learned the life histories of pelicans along their coast, and developed pelican characters who solved a mystery that impacted their coastal fishing community.
C2C Productions develop over a minimum of four months, partnering with young people and educators from at least two to six fishing communities education partners across geographies.
About Us
We’re a circle of friends — artists, scientists, educators, and water people — who embrace adaptation, interdependence, and transformative justice in our work. We are happiest in wild nature. We believe in the power of play, enchantment, and trust to shape sustainable futures for rural communities in a changing climate and industrializing planet.
Investigation
Imagination
Immersion
Play
Join the movement!
From volunteering with us in person or remotely, sponsoring a workshop, or buying a rad t-shirt made by local artists, here are a few ways to join the movement from coast to coast!
Coast 2 Coast Movement