UNESCO organised a three-day Winter School in Venice to rethink how to improve the quality of ocean-related partnerships and collaborations in the framework of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030, and the EU4Ocean Coalition.
During the event days, early career ocean professionals from all over the world met in Venice (Italy) to discuss solutions and understand how to collaborate in multicultural environments when promoting Ocean Literacy. The speaker’s group was composed of international professionals, scientists, experts, journalists, corporate sustainability professionals, entrepreneurs, strategists, science diplomats, negotiators, and public policy developers, among many other professionals that made this event one unique occasion!
The Winter School also made it possible to engage with sectors that can benefit the advancement of OL in the world. An example was the disciplines of linguistics, journalism, corporate responsibility, and even negotiation. Some speakers joined the session online, such as the case of Adriana Porcellato, a specialist in Linguistics from USP Brazil speaker in the session “Navigating the (partially uncharted) waters of intercultural communication: how to negotiate meaning across languages and cultures” with Malila Prado, who mentioned that “We really enjoyed running this workshop and wanted to congratulate you on such an important initiative and to thank you for the great opportunity and valuable assistance!”.
The participant Agnese Riccardi stated that the Winter School was “a great opportunity to learn and get to know other young enthusiasts with different backgrounds and commitments in several aspects of the Ocean Decade!”.
Gualter Crisostomo, Co-Founder of Innovathon said it was “super stimulating to share my experience as speaker in the area of Negotiation and Network Building with a wonderful set of participants. The Winter School also allowed me to connect with other enthusiasts with different backgrounds and commitments in several aspects of the Ocean Decade!”.
This event was a unique opportunity for youth members of the EU4Ocean Coalition, Youth4Ocean Forum, and Early Career Ocean Professionals to better engage and work through cross-cutting themes of ocean sciences such as transdisciplinarity, empathy, and diversity. Participants also connected with collaborative ocean networks and were encouraged to join the networks which promote activities such as Youth4Ocean. Winter School participants will be able to tap into the tools and skills developed during the Winter School to implement their own ocean literacy projects and activities in their local context in a collaborative way, understanding the nuances of communication between cultures in an international context.
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Discover the Ocean Decade Programme Ocean Literacy With All (OLWA)