Please Support Isla De Tierra Bomba!
Donation protected
Watch the full film on Waterbear now
A 19 year-old woman, Yassandra Barrios emerges as the environmental leader of her island. She learns to dive, studies Marine Biology, rallies the fishermen and young people to bring awareness to protecting their marine ecosystem. She inspires those around her with a vision of a more secure future for their island home.
Paraiso Dive Cartagena is the dive centre that partnered with Yassandra and took her diving for her first time over two years ago. Paraiso Dive has taken Yassandra for all consecutive dives and trainings.
A 19 year-old woman, Yassandra Barrios emerges as the environmental leader of her island. She learns to dive, studies Marine Biology, rallies the fishermen and young people to bring awareness to protecting their marine ecosystem. She inspires those around her with a vision of a more secure future for their island home.
Paraiso Dive Cartagena is the dive centre that partnered with Yassandra and took her diving for her first time over two years ago. Paraiso Dive has taken Yassandra for all consecutive dives and trainings.
Yassandra is one of several youth in their program that teaches young islanders about reef conservation and diving in order to empower them to appreciate their reef and furrthermore give them job opportunities. For Yassandra and the other youth in their program, learning to dive has opened up a new world, that most other islanders have never experienced. By seeing, first hand, the coral reef that her community survives from, she has witnessed how it is rapidly being destroyed.
Since we made the film and raised our first amount of funding, Paraiso Dive founders have set up a new community project on the island: Projecto Sinergia; that incorporates community above and below water. They have built a house on the island of Bocachica, dedicated to "Diving with Purpose" and brings science, conservation, education, and art projects to Bocachica and its coral reef Varadero. SINGERIA is the first project of its kind on the island, and gives community members like Yassandra additional opportunities to learn about the reef, plus job opportunities focused on reef conservation and monitoring.
The Varadero Reef is especially important for not only the communities survival but also scientific research on Global Coral reef. It has a paradoxical existence, harboring high coral cover and diversity despite the poor water quality and sediments discharged during the last 500 years by the Canal del Dique, a canal connecting Cartagena Bay to the Magdalena River. Varadero´s Reef is now being thrust into the international conservation spotlight as a Mission Blue Hope Spot. The persistence of the Varadero´s Reef is currently threatened by a project to modernize Cartagena’s port, not only by the direct damage produced by the dredging of a new shipping lane through the reef, but also by the deterioration of water conditions associated with the operation and maintenance of the channel and thus creating even more urgent need to empower the community who call the reef home to protect it.
Projecto Sinergia need YOUR help to continue with the construction of the house, buy lab materials and continue to create this office and education space for local communities and projects to use. Coronavirus made life on the island particularly challenging for many of the community and also deeply affected the project. Still, although with limited resources, SINERGIA has been able to take multiple groups on the island diving and organised presentations and workshops with Marine Biologists and created partnerships with universities on the mainland to open up education opportunities for the people of Bocachica. There is so much potential for the project to grow and host workshops that inspire the community to take part in many other activities, such as filmmaking and photography, yoga and mental health awareness, waste management and so on.
Please contribute what you can to this fundraiser. Thank you for helping to bring more long-term conservation to Varadero reef and inclusion and empowerment to Bocachica's community! Even a small contribution makes a big impact!
The Varadero Reef is especially important for not only the communities survival but also scientific research on Global Coral reef. It has a paradoxical existence, harboring high coral cover and diversity despite the poor water quality and sediments discharged during the last 500 years by the Canal del Dique, a canal connecting Cartagena Bay to the Magdalena River. Varadero´s Reef is now being thrust into the international conservation spotlight as a Mission Blue Hope Spot. The persistence of the Varadero´s Reef is currently threatened by a project to modernize Cartagena’s port, not only by the direct damage produced by the dredging of a new shipping lane through the reef, but also by the deterioration of water conditions associated with the operation and maintenance of the channel and thus creating even more urgent need to empower the community who call the reef home to protect it.
Projecto Sinergia need YOUR help to continue with the construction of the house, buy lab materials and continue to create this office and education space for local communities and projects to use. Coronavirus made life on the island particularly challenging for many of the community and also deeply affected the project. Still, although with limited resources, SINERGIA has been able to take multiple groups on the island diving and organised presentations and workshops with Marine Biologists and created partnerships with universities on the mainland to open up education opportunities for the people of Bocachica. There is so much potential for the project to grow and host workshops that inspire the community to take part in many other activities, such as filmmaking and photography, yoga and mental health awareness, waste management and so on.
Please contribute what you can to this fundraiser. Thank you for helping to bring more long-term conservation to Varadero reef and inclusion and empowerment to Bocachica's community! Even a small contribution makes a big impact!
Organizer
Lucy Jane
Organizer
England