Our month-to six-month-long programs focus on cultivating relationships with local partners and facilitating co-designed workshops over one to six months. We collaborate internationally with nonprofits and social impact organizations to produce and facilitate on-the-ground programs focusing on positive youth development in small-scale fishing communities. Embracing emergent strategy principles, we foster adaptability, resilience, and interconnectedness within our initiatives. Through the lens of common world pedagogies, we emphasize collective learning and relationality, strengthening curiosity and creativity among youth.
Our approach highlights how geography shapes youth and how youth, in turn, shape geography, using their voices to create positive futures for their rural fishing communities.
From short films to street art, stop-motion animation, web design, and photography - participants in our one to six-month programs learn through situational activities targeting language, skills, and knowledge necessary to ascend as resilient authors of their life stories. We prepare youth to access new opportunities that contribute to their personal growth, cultural heritage, and region's biodiversity.
PERÚ
Homebase
Lobitos, Talara, Piura, Perú
October 2014 - Current
Coast 2 Coast’s year-round program in Lobitos, Peru, began as a collaboration with WAVES Lobitos through the Lobitos Cinema Project and Beyond the Surface International. Initially focused on facilitating free photography workshops for the local community, this program has since evolved into the home base for a variety of our initiatives. These include Women and Water, Festival Somos Mar, Food from the Sea, Map from Coast 2 Coast, the SSF Guidelines Curriculum, and many more. Over the years, Lobitos has become a vibrant hub for our collaborative efforts to engage this small-scale fishing community through creative arts, wave riding, place-based education, and sustainable practices where kids grow up with an affinity for their built and natural community. We have cultivated relationships with the spaces, characters, and actions that make Lobitos so unique and the place we call home.
From Lobitos, we have partnered with other dynamic coastal and inland fishing communities and incredible local partners across the country to facilitate workshops that focus on building caring relationships with ourselves and the world around us.
Solomon Islands
Cultural Revitilization in Gizo, Solomon Islands
July - August 2024
In Gizo, located in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands, Coast 2 Coast partnered with Positive Change for Marine Life and Kastom Keepers to implement a program focused on revitalizing traditional knowledge for healthy environments. Supported by a USAID grant, this initiative aimed to reconnect local fishing communities with their ancestral practices to promote sustainable environmental relationships.
Positive Change for Marine Life is an Australian nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting marine ecosystems and empowering communities through education, capacity-building, and conservation initiatives. Kastom Keepers, a project by Emerson Collective Fellow and Obama Scholar Millicent Barty, works to preserve and revive traditional knowledge and cultural practices within the Solomon Islands. Together, these organizations collaborated with Coast 2 Coast to deliver a program that integrated traditional ecological knowledge with modern conservation methods.
The program engaged local fishing communities in Gizo, focusing on the transmission of traditional knowledge related to sustainable fishing practices, environmental health, and the cultural significance of the marine environment as connected with well-being. Through workshops and community gatherings, elders shared their knowledge of the land and sea through empathy mapping, memory walking, and discussions with younger generations. Through community action planning sessions, participants set goals for how to continue revitalizing and practicing cultural heritage for resilient futures.
VIETNAM
Fulbright-National Geographic Storytelling Grant in Mui Ne, Vietnam
October 2019 - April 2020
Enabled by a Fulbright research award in partnership with the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi and a grant from National Geographic, Coast 2 Coast facilitated PhotoVoice workshops with local fishing families along Southern Vietnam's coastline and islands. We partnered with two local Vietnamese nonprofit organizations: MANTA and the Center for Biodiversity Conservation and Endangered Species (CBES).
MANTA is Vietnam’s first and only official sailing school, promoting human and environmental health through water sports. MANTA helps fishermen transition away from endangered habitats and overfishing by translating their ocean instincts into water sports coaching and climate change survival skills. This alternative livelihood program is supported by large groups of schoolchildren and corporate partners.
The Center for Biodiversity Conservation and Endangered Species (CBES) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving biodiversity and protecting endangered species through research, education, and community engagement. CBES addresses knowledge gaps and promotes sustainable practices, especially in the face of rapid environmental changes and development.
These workshops focused on the social and ecological impacts of low fish availability on the well-being of Vietnamese small-scale fishing villages. The data collected contributed to the development of a participatory monitoring tool for implementing the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines). The SSF Guidelines are the first international instrument dedicated entirely to the vital small-scale fisheries sector, the result of a long and intensive global bottom-up consultative process.
INDONESIA
Action Communication Program in Morotai, North Maluku, Indonesia
October 2018 - April 2019
With grant funding from the U.S. Consulate in Surabaya, Coast 2 Coast partnered with a local partner, A Liquid Future, to launch the "Action Communication" program in Morotai, North Maluku, Indonesia. Morotai was selected by the Indonesian government as an island to develop for tourism. Over six months, we engaged with schools in three remote fishing communities to prepare for this wave of development.
Our audiovisual curriculum emphasized activism-oriented English, where students co-produced interviews, PhotoVoice projects, and short narratives. As opposed to learning phrases like, "The cat is on the table," students learned how to say, "This is my coconut tree. You cannot cut it down." These activities enabled students and local educators to express their desires and what they cherish about their beautiful island, fostering pride and advocacy for their social-ecological environment. Through this program, students developed their English language skills and learned to use digital media to tell their stories and advocate for their communities amidst the growing tide of tourism across isolated Indonesian islands.
COLOMBIA
Surf & Culture in San Bernardo del Viento, Colombia
November - December 2015
In San Bernardo del Viento, a coastal community in Colombia, Coast 2 Coast implemented our first-ever program! We pulled together some savings and co-created a program that combined surfing, environmental education, and creative arts to engage local youth. Together with our incredible local partner, Fundación Sinumar, the program aimed to foster a deep connection between the participants and their coastal built and natural environment.
Fundación Sinumar is a local nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving marine ecosystems and promoting sustainable practices among coastal communities. The project, led by our dear friend Dorcas, a community leader, singer-songwriter, and an afro-indigenous social activist, provides two key programs: Women Empowerment & Literacy and Environmental Awareness. These programs focus on developing participants' literacy skills and environmental awareness through experiential learning. Each program helps participants understand their ancestral and cultural identity, fostering strong community engagement and protection. Through these initiatives, participants learn to conserve their land and wildlife while promoting peace within their village.
Over the course of the program, students engaged in activities that blended ocean sports with lessons on environmental stewardship and social responsibility. Surfing served as a gateway to instilling a sense of pride and agency in the young participants, encouraging them to take an active role in preserving their environment and cultural heritage. Through creative arts projects, students expressed their experiences and learned how to advocate for their community's well-being.
