A Sea of Smiles - Message in a Bottle eco art project with kids in Papua

MESSAGE ME!!

When we stepped foot on Barefoot Conservation camp on the remote island of Arborek - in Raja Ampat West Papua - we were greeted by a sea of smiles. 70 of the 120 island Inhabitants are children – all under the age of 12!

On the tiny, flat island of Arborek, there is little fresh water, electricity or technology; life is very different to the Western world. Kids are not glued to screens, and they have very few toys.

Mother nature is their babysitter, and their playground is the sea and sandy shores: somersaulting off the jetty in shorts and t-shirts, paddling along the coast in wooden canoes, free diving with the neon-coloured marine life, or climbing coconut trees is how they play, day after day!

Oh, and they go to school – when they feel like it!

During our 3-week stay at Barefoot Conservation, Message Me was born: a participatory eco-arts project we made with some kids on Arborek. With the help of Barefoot’s community officer Maya Puspa Kewi we got our Message Me project off to a flying start! Our drone Daphne helped to capture all the amazing aerial footage!

Message Me involves the kids writing marine conservation messages to put inside plastic bottles they find polluting the seas or washed up on the beaches.

Each child’s message invites others around the world to participate and create a cross-cultural dialogue. First, the kids started with a beach clean up.

The kids also made these wonderful photographic portraits holding their bottles under the water before sending them off for recycling.

Raja Ampat is one of the world’s most remote locations and home to the highest concentration and diversity of marine life on Earth. The oceans of Raja Ampat contain 80% of all the world’s coral species, 1350 species of fish, 6 of the world’s marine turtle species and 27 varieties of marine mammal. Manta rays are also abundant here.

Messages such as ‘Don’t stand on the coral’ and ‘Please do not disturb the mantas’ are written by the Papuan girls to help raise awareness of man’s destruction of our eco-systems. Through photographic and filmed documentation of the messages, the concept of throwing the message in a bottle into the sea is reversed: to spread the message on the internet, posters or publication and other means of communication: then recycle the bottles after displaying them in the local community.

“This staggering concentration of biodiversity is unparalleled anywhere in the world today. The reefs at Raja Ampat show remarkable resistance to global marine threats such as climate change, coral bleaching, and disease. Larvae produced here are swept across the oceans to replenish other reefs, which support healthy ecosystems globally and sustainable subsistence fishing for poor local villagers. What happens in Raja Ampat will have a direct impact on the world's marine ecosystem. It is vital we understand and protect it.” – Barefoot Conservation

We have since taken the Message Me project to the Philippines so please WATCH THIS SPACE! To see what messages Filippino kids are sending to help spread the marine message!

Our 3 weeks spent as volunteers at Barefoot Conservation was one of the highlights of our round the world trip traveling through 16 countries in 16 months. Living on a remote island, with few creature comforts, scuba diving with mantas every day and helping marine conservation is truly a unique experience.

Realising Message Me with the local kids really was the icing on the cake!

If you are interested in learning more about what it’s like to volunteer at Barefoot Conservation then fire away with your questions down below. We made lots of videos during our stay there, check out this one:

WATCH THIS PLANET HERO SPACE!