Ocean pollution is a problem every windsurfer should care and be doing something about and Jakub ‘Kuba’ Gąsiewski and the team at Ion club Mauritius have come up with an inspiring way to help by setting up an organisation to educate communities on the problem and ways to solve it.
Kuba tells us more -“Have a look at a recent event I organized in Le Morne, concerning the plastic pollution in the ocean. We invited 80 children from local schools to participate in water activities such as windsurfing, kitesurfing, sailing and diving + arts, music and exhibitions concerning the problem in a “plastic consciousness” day. Hopefully waking up their hidden passion to the ocean.
There was a lot of arts and music, Children have painted 10 recycling bins which are going to be set up in several spots around Le Morne. Children and their parents learned about recycling, reusing, reducing and about the importance of marine life. That knowledge was straight away put into action of cleaning the beach.We organized a competition – the person who made the most innovative creation out of trash/plastic won a voucher of 6 hours of windsurfing lessons offered by ION CLUB Mauritius. In the afternoon we all listened to amazing live music shows. It was really a beautiful day.
I believe, that by making children interested in watersports we can indirectly prevent part of the pollution problem. Simply by waking up their passion to the sport we make them connected to the ocean. It will then be in their interest to preserve it and keep it clean. Recently I jumped from the boat to go surfing and cut myself open on a peace of plastic floating on the surface. The ocean slowly becomes plastic! I think that we as windsurfers should rise up and do something and help keep our ocean clean. If you want to follow our cause, here is our facebook page: www.facebook.com/loseanvivab/ and thanks to David Varekamp for the photos.”
You may remember Kuba (pictured above) as the innovative windsurf instructor who wrote one of our most popular articles last year -www.windsurf.co.uk/windsurfing-childs-play/ about a new and exciting way to teach children and the recent star of our perspective photo series – www.windsurf.co.uk/featured/kuba-gasiewski-perspective/