United Nations
Educational, Scientific andCultural Organization

Intergovernmental Sustainable
Oceanographic
Development
Commission
Goals

PRESS RELEASEPRADA AND UNESCO ANNOUNCE THE COMPLETION OF THE SEA BEYONDEDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME
Milan and Paris, 15th February 2021 – Prada and UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic
Commission (IOC) present the last phase of the educational programme Sea Beyond, a tailor-madepilot conceived for secondary schools all around the world to raise awareness on ocean preservationand sustainability.
Sea Beyond sought to educate the new generations about adopting more responsible and mindfulbehaviors towards the ocean and its resources, promoting sustainable consumption in line with theUnited Nations 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
During the first phase of the project (October 2020 – January 2021), high school teachers in ten cities
around the world (Berlin, Cape Town, Lisbon, London, Mexico City, Milan, New York, Paris, Shanghai,Venice) took part in webinars conducted by UNESCO-IOC experts, in which they received training on
how to develop an educational module dedicated to the theme of ocean sustainability. Every school
received a “Sea Beyond” toolkit made of recycled cardboard, containing educational as well as creative
materials to enable students to play an active role in a global ocean sustainability movement.
During the project’s second phase, starting on the 25th January 2021, students, as true“sea ambassadors”, have been tasked with developing awareness campaigns focused on oceanpreservation as part of an international competition.
At a virtual event on the 26th March 2021, an international jury will announce the winning campaign.
Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group Head of Corporate Social Responsibility and Vladimir Ryabinin,
Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and Assistant Director
General of UNESCO, will be joined by international personalities who have dedicated their talentand careers to saving our ocean.
Jury members include: Italian writer Alessandro Baricco; aquanaut, oceanographic explorer andenvironmental advocate Fabien Cousteau; environmental artist Anne de Carbuccia; marine scientist
and social entrepreneur Kerstin Forsberg; and Italian gold-medalist free diver Alessia Zecchini.
The jury will help Prada and UNESCO selecting the most creative project.
The event will be moderated by Brazilian marine activist and artist Patricia Furtado de Mendonça.
The winning campaign will be disseminated on Prada and UNESCO social channels as well as onwww.pradagroup.com and www.ioc.unesco.org, while the school of the selected project will behonored with an award of € 5,000 to be invested in educational materials.
The whole event will be live-streamed on www.pradagroup.com, starting from 2.00 pm CET
on March 26th, 2021.
Participating schools include: Aristoteles Gesamtschule Bernau Montessori schule Niederbarnim, Berlin(Germany); Protea Heights Academy, Protea (South Africa); Escola Básica e Secundária Anselmo DeAndrade, Alamada (Portugal); Agrupamento de Escolas de Vialonga, Vialonga (Portugal); the Kingston
Academy, Surrey (UK); Colegio Latino, Villahermosa, Tabasco (Mexico); Istituto Marcelline Tommaseo,Milan (Italy); New Rochelle High School, New Rochelle (USA); Lycée International Saint Germain en
Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye (France); Shanghai High School International Division, Shanghai (China);
Benedetti Tommaseo, Venice (Italy).

PRADA GROUP
Prada S.p.A. is a global leader in the luxury goods industry. The Group, which owns the Prada, Miu Miu,
Church’s and Car Shoe brands, produces and distributes luxury leather goods, footwear and apparelbenefitting from a supply chain which includes 22 owned industrial sites. It also operates in the food sector
with Marchesi 1824 and in the eyewear and fragrance industries under licensing agreements.
The Group employs nearly 14,000 people and its products are sold in 70 countries worldwide through 637
directly operated stores as of June 30, 2020, brand’s e-commerce, a selection of luxury department storesand multi-brand stores in the most prestigious locations as well as through the most important e-tailers.
The Prada Group is synonymous with innovation, transformation and independence and it is committed topromote a business culture oriented towards sustainability. These principles offer its brands a shared visionin which they are able to express their essence.
The company is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as 1913.HK.
UNESCO’S INTERGOVERNMENTAL OCEANOGRAPHIC COMMISSION
The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO) promotes international
cooperation in marine sciences to improve management of the ocean, coasts and marine resources.
The IOC enables its 150 Member States to work together by coordinating programmes in capacity
development, ocean observations and services, ocean science and tsunami warning. The work of theIOC contributes to the mission of UNESCO to promote the advancement of science and its applications
to develop knowledge and capacity, key to economic and social progress, the basis of peace andsustainable development.

For further information:
Prada Press Office+39.02.567811
corporatepress@prada.com
www.pradagroup.com
UNESCO Press OfficeGeorge Papagiannis (Media Chief)+33.1.45.68.17.06
g.papagiannis@unesco.org
www.ioc.unesco.org

THE JURY
Lorenzo Bertelli
Lorenzo Bertelli, aged 32, has been Group Head of Marketing since 2019 and from 2020 has been
appointed Group’s Head of CSR. He is responsible, on one side, for the Group’s Marketing andCommunication strategy and for the development, innovation and sales analysis of the retail channel
for all the Group’s brands and, on the other, for the Group’s overall approach to sustainability strategy
and initiatives. He joined the Group in 2017 as Head of Digital Communication and was appointed asHead of Marketing and Communication in 2018. Mr. Bertelli has also been Director of Prada Holding S.p.A.
since 2015. Lorenzo Bertelli obtained a degree in Philosophy at San Raffaele University in Milan in 2008;
he is the son of Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, the Chief Executive Officers of the Prada Group.
Vladimir Ryabinin
Dr Vladimir Ryabinin (Engineer, 1978; Ph.D., 1982; and Doctor of Sciences, 1995) is the Executive
Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO and Assistant DirectorGeneral of UNESCO. Dr Ryabinin is an oceanographer, marine engineer, climatologist, and emeritus
meteorologist of Russia. His research has led to a number of achievements in weather prediction, marine
engineering, and in ocean and climate science. Some of his previous affiliations include the Hydrometcentreof Russia (as a researcher and head of laboratory), Moscow State University (as a lecturer), International
Ocean Institute (as the director), and World Climate Research Programme (as a senior scientific officer).
Dr Ryabinin’s research started from mathematical modelling of ocean currents. He is a key developer ofthe first Soviet model that started predicting weather for the country for 5-7 days ahead. Later he worked
in the Russian Arctic studying sea-ice and leading a big project for shelf engineering. He also developed
a mathematical model of wind waves on the surface of the ocean. With his knowledge of ocean andatmosphere, sea ice, in 1980s he started to act as an expert for the United Nations, in 1990s contributed
to the core design of the ocean observing system, and in 2000s-2010s was coordinating international
climate research. Since 2015 his focus has been on using the science for saving the ocean.
Alessandro Baricco
Alessandro Baricco is one of Italy’s most versatile contemporary writers and public intellectuals. Knownfor his bestselling novels “Land of Glass” (Campiello and Prix Medicis Prize winner), “Ocean Sea” (1993)
and “Silk” (1996, translated into 16 languages), Baricco has also had a prolific career as television hostof cultural programs, as a playwright, and essayist. His fourth non-fiction book “The Barbarians” (2006)
tackled the relationship between writing and the digital cultural revolution. In his latest book “The Game”(2018), Baricco has returned to this topic enlarging his perspective to the impact of the digital revolution
on humanist thought and culture at large. The book represents an intellectual preface to the principles
that Baricco has applied to the Academy program of the Holden School of Contemporary Humanities
that he founded in 1994 in Turin (Italy).
Fabien Cousteau
Grandson of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Fabien spent his early years aboard his famous grandfather’s ships,
Calypso and Alcyone and learning how to scuba dive on his fourth birthday.
From 2006 to 2010, Fabien was part of a multi-hour docu-series called, “Ocean Adventures” withhis father, Jean-Michel Cousteau, and sister, Céline, inspired by his grandfather’s famous 1978 series,“The Cousteau Odyssey”. In the following years, and as a member of multiple cause- driven, Fabien has
been working with local communities and children worldwide to help restore local water ecosystems.
In June 2014, Fabien and his team of aquanauts embarked on Mission 31, the longest science expedition
to take place at Aquarius, the world’s only underwater marine laboratory located in Florida.

Fabien’s Mission 31 broke new ground in ocean exploration and honored the 50 th anniversary of hisgrandfather’s original underwater living experiment (Conshelf Two) by going deeper, longer and further,while broadcasting the Mission live on multiple channels. Early in 2016, he founded the Fabien Cousteau
Ocean Learning Center (“FCOLC”), to fulfill his dream of creating a vehicle to make a positive change inthe world. Currently, he is working on multiple projects and dedicates much of his time to the FCOLC’smarine restoration programs and research initiatives including: Coral Reef Restoration, Mangrove
Restoration, Beach Clean Ups, Sea Turtle Restoration and PROTEUS™. Recently Fabien was namedan Honorary Advisor to the NGO Committee Sustainable Development-NY, whose purpose is to monitor
and influence the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Anne de Carbuccia
Anne de Carbuccia is a French American artist and filmmaker who travels to the world’s most remotelocations to document through her art endangered environments, species and cultures. Her images havebeen exhibited in museums and public institutions throughout Europe and the United States. Her debut
short film, One Ocean, was presented at the 75th Venice International Film Festival. Anne has establishedthe Time Shrine Foundation in the USA and the One Planet One Future Association in Italy, to raiseawareness on climate breakdown and human-caused threats to the planet. She is currently working ona feature a forthcoming documentary on the challenges of the “Anthropocene”.
Kerstin Forsberg
Founder and Director of Planeta Océano, a Peruvian non-profit organization empowering coastal
communities in marine conservation through research, education and sustainable development efforts.
She is Board Member of the international non-profit Migramar and has served as a consultant for theprivate, governmental, and inter-governmental sectors, including UNESCO and the Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission. As a public speaker, she has presented in over 16 countries, in venues
including the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the United Nations Headquarters
and the Royal Geographic Society. Her efforts have included pioneering giant manta ray conservationin Peru, securing legal protection for critically endangered sawfish, setting-up Northern Peru’s Marine
Educators Network, among others. Forsberg has been named as one of Fortune Magazine’s “50 World’s
Greatest Leaders”, a “Next Generation Leader” by TIME and a “30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur”
by Forbes Magazine. She is a Rolex Award for Enterprise Laureate, Whitley Award (“Green Oscars”)
Winner, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, an Ashoka Fellow and member ofFriends of Ocean Action.
Alessia Zecchini
Alessia Zecchini (Rome, June 30, 1992) is an Italian freediver, world champion in six freediving disciplines,
European indoor champion in 2019 and outdoor world champion in the same year. At the age of 13, sheobtained her first federal apnea license in the A.s.d. “Apnea Blu Mare”. Since 2012, she has been partof the Italian national team of indoor and outdoor freediving, so far winning sixteen gold medals, fivesilver and two bronze medals at the World Championships and three golds, six silvers and one bronze atthe European Championships. She is currently the “deepest woman in the world” with her -113 meter inconstant weight (monofin), achieved in August 2019 during the World Championship in Roatan, Honduras.
On October 18, 2019 she becomes the first woman to have touched the depth of -100 meter exclusively
with the use of her arms (free immersion), during the “Nirvana Oceanquest” in Curacao.

THE MODERATOR
Patricia Furtado de Mendonça
Patricia is a Brazilian Artist, an Inspirational Speaker, a Marine Activist and a “Water & Ocean Reconnection
Experience” Facilitator. She holds a Master’s degree in Performing Arts from the University of Rio deJaneiro and a Bachelor’s degree in Drama, Arts and Music Studies from the University of Bologna, Italy.
In 2017, after working for 20 years with ARTS + EDUCATION + SUSTAINABILITY interactions in artistic
and academic environments, as well as in NGOs, private companies and governmental bodies, she decides
to dedicate her life to what she loves the most: the Ocean. She founds ACQUA MATER, an organizationthat develops multidisciplinary projects to reconnect us to Ocean. In 2019 she releases “We are Water”,
the first documentary produced by Acqua Mater’s “Nomadic Water School”, in which she works withchildren in vulnerable situation. Besides promoting the construction of a New Water Culture and thedissemination of Ocean Literacy’s principles and contents, she runs ongoing research about our MarineMemories, associating traditional knowledge, human and natural sciences. She collaborates with variousinternational organizations directed to the Youth as a Mentor and an Advisor, such as: Sustainable OceanAlliance, Waterlution, UNFCCC Youngo Ocean’s Voice and Mermaid Federation International.
She’s also the Brazilian Coordinator of the Latin American Marine Educators Association and an“ImPact Professional” of the UN Brazilian Global Compact Network.

SOME PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS’ VOICESPROFESSORS

Carmen GlennNew Rochelle High School, New York City (USA)“Students care deeply about the ocean and want to do something
to conserve natural resources”.

Jesus FernandezJunior High Principal, Colegio Latino, Mexico City (Mexico)“We must encourage the new generations to create awarenessof their own ecological commitment”.

Elia Martins

Agrupamento de Escolas Anselmo de Andrade, Almada (Portugal)“Ocean’s future is in the hands of next generations.
They must be trained towards more ethical choices”.

Francesca Boscolo

Liceo Benedetti Tommaseo, Venice (Italy)“It’s important to promote sustainable behaviours.
Young people enthusiasm, like the sea, is boundless”.

STUDENTS

Bruno Silva

Agrupamento de Escolas de Vialonga (Portugal)“We must create awareness within communities on marine pollution.
All together we will be better”.

Leonor Castro

Agrupamento de Escolas de Vialonga (Portugal)“Increase the responsibilityand the awareness of conservation
depend on you, on all of us”.

Irís Atende

Agrupamento de Escolas de Vialonga (Portugal)“Thanks to SEA BEYOND, I learned how to takethe right steps to help and save our planet”.

Jessica Martin and Alberta Carraro

Liceo Benedetti Tommaseo, Venice (Italy)“Through the SEA BEYOND programme,
we discovered how air pollution affects ocean’s health”.

Kayla Labuschagne

Protea Heights Academy, Cape Town (South Africa)“Never stop trying to better our environment,
because without it none of us would exist”.

Daniella Wood

Protea Heights Academy, Cape Town (South Africa)“We need to learn to sustain and conserve the ocean.
And together we can make a difference”.