Our drive is our love for the ocean!
Meeting the ocean and its secrets at eye level allows us to reach new horizons. Our aim is to open these doors to as many people as possible, so that fascination for the ocean gives rise to the drive for protecting this habitat. Okeanos supports partners and projects that are actively involved and encourages young people in particular to create their own tools and voices to engage in processes of environmental protection and social transformation.
Okeanos – Foundation for the Sea
A fabulous seventy per cent of the earth is covered by oceans. They are the fascinating and mysterious heart of our planet and the powerful lungs that make human life on land possible. Despite their seeming inexhaustibility, our oceans are fragile systems, finite and vulnerable. Protecting them is a fundamental prerequisite if we want to ensure human life on land. And action speaks louder than words.
“Fifty years ago, we perceived oceans as inexhaustible and indestructible. Today we know that this was a huge misconception. So let’s act accordingly!”
– Dieter Paulmann
Therefore, we have been working with various partners in the Pacific for more than ten years to develop sustainable maritime transport and support research projects aimed at long-term system changes. In Germany, we primarily support youth and young adults in their ecological and social commitment, among others through youth initiatives like waves of action. On their way to becoming strong activists and spokespersons, we support young people by guiding them in their personal development and giving them self-care tools that make their engagement truly sustainable.
Extract from the projects:
Okeanos Foundation Project
WAVES OF ACTION - The people centred ocean initiative The Okeanos Foundation's youth initiative for the ocean
WAVES OF ACTION is the youth initiative of the Okeanos Foundation for the Sea. Here, people are at the centre of experience-based, socio-ecological work.
Okeanos Foundation Project
OceanCamp 2.0: Hallig Hooge
How can we expand our OceanCamp programme? With this question, the Okeanos team launched a pilot project on Hallig Hooge.
Okeanos Foundation Project
OceanCamps
The WAVES OF ACTION ‘OceanCamps’ took place for the fourth time during the nationwide summer holidays.
Funding Project
Whalefall – an immersive sound experience by Michaela Vieser and Matas Petrikas
When a whale dies, its body sinks to the bottom of the sea. There, in the cold, dark depths, a transformation begins: the ocean brings back life in an unimaginable way.
Okeanos Foundation Project
Scholarship Ocean Journalism
For the second time, the research scholarship for marine reporting took place on the Vaka Okeanos in the Mediterranean. Young journalists from various regions came together to spend a week on board the catamaran researching and reporting on the Mediterranean and its pressing problems.
Cooperation
‘Active Hope’ - from resignation to shaping the future
Being confident sounds good, but is easier said than done. After all, we stumble from crisis to crisis, one bad news story tops the next in the news, and part of society sees itself as the ‘last generation’ that has to manage to turn the tide on climate protection and species extinction in a short space of time.
Funding Project
Wave writer 2022: Michaela Vieser
For the first time, Okeanos supports an outstanding nature writer with our project ‘wave writer’.
Okeanos Foundation Project
Frag Mich Doch Mal (Ask Me Anything)
Tested, proven, continued – that sums up the online format ‘Frag Mich Doch Mal’, where young people can put their questions to experts.
Cooperation
IDG Watchparty in Darmstadt - Application open
The complement to the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals: Inner Development Goals (IDGs)