The Hellenic Marine Environment Protection Association (HELMEPA)’s Environmental Awareness Campaign held its final series of events on the island of Euboea in May. The campaign, supported by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, is geared toward educating children on the issue of marine pollution and encouraging their engagement in environmental conservation and protection activities.
In addition to student tours of the Marine Environment, Shipping, Sciences and Engineering exhibition, HELMEPA held a workshop entitled ‘Environmental Education and Protecting the Marine Environment’ for teachers and local residents interested in environmental protection.
This introduction to the work of HELMEPA introduces children to HELMEPA Junior, a programme that has, to date, gotten more than 70,000 children involved in environmental awareness group activities such as beach clean-ups and encouraged them to practice sustainable living.
HELMEPA, a non-profit NGO, was founded by Greek seafarers and shipowners in 1978, with a mission to ‘Nuture a high level of environmental consciousness within the ranks of the Greek maritime community with the means of education, information, motivation and publicity'. HELMEPA Junior was launched in 1992, after several years of projects involving school groups led to the students requesting their own platform for voicing environmental concerns and promoting their ideas for protecting the environment.