Prada and Unesco-IOC announce Sea Beyond developments

Italian luxury fashion house Prada and Unesco’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) have announced developments in Sea Beyond, an education project for secondary schools around the world to raise awareness on ocean preservation and sustainability.

The Prada Group and Unesco-IOC will launch a competition for students to freely interpret one of the ten challenges of the Ocean Decade using text, graphics or interactive content in spring 2022. The winning schools will be revealed on 29 June 2022 at the United Nations ocean conference.

Ten schools from countries including Brazil, China, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, South Africa and the United Kingdom have joined the second edition of the programme.

Sea Beyond will present an educational project for kids entitled “Kindergarten of the Lagoon” in Venice in September 2022, the programme will focus on the principles of outdoor education.

Prada’s ocean literacy training is still ongoing for its 13,000 plus employees to raise awareness on ocean literacy and encourage them to have a more active role in protecting the ocean.

Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group head of corporate social responsibility, said in a statement: “On this important day for our planet, let’s remember that sustainability and the preservation of our resources are closely linked to education.

“Even though it is difficult to find solutions for the climate emergency that surrounds us, only through education and daily small gestures, we will concretely accelerate towards the change we need.”

Vladimir Ryabinin, executive secretary of Unesco’s IOC, explained: “Unesco-IOC is pleased to continue its fruitful collaboration with the Prada Group. We communicate the importance of learning about the ocean and ‘walking the talk’ with concrete actions that are science-based and lead to tangible solutions. Investing in ocean literacy will help us shape the next generation of ocean stewards and sustain ocean action into the future.”