WIKI’s Centennial Expedition: Monaco's Nautical Journey

Earlier this month, the Yacht Club de Monaco hosted a special dinner-conference in support of WIKI’s Centennial Expedition and its multi-media youth and educational initiative to create greater public awareness and inspire behavioural change to meet the urgent need to protect and preserve the Greater Mediterranean and the world’s oceans. Nice-based YouthWrites contributor Majda Amadou reports:

Presenting to over 50 guests at Monaco’s imposing, ocean-liner like headquarters of the Yacht Club de Monaco (YCM) designed by renowned British architect Norman Foster, the project’s initial founders, filmmaker and sailor Tom Woods and foreign correspondent and author Edward Girardet, explained the purpose of the three-year ‘Med’ expedition and the HelpSaveTheMed.org initiative to help raise awareness about the state of the Mediterranean, and what to do about it. (See video)

“For us, WIKI serves as an symbol to show how the Mare Nostrum (as the Mediterranean is often referred to) has changed over the past century and what we are doing about the next five or 10 years,” said Woods, who renovated this classic sailing ketch built in Kiel, Germany, in 1920, from a “virtual wreck” over 40 years ago to its current spectacular state.

“Together with our knowledge partners, we plan to draw attention to environmental pollution and the impact of climate change on both land and sea, but also key issues such the erosion of cultural heritage sites, mass tourism, overfishing and wildfires,” explained Woods, a three-times Emmy Award winning cineast, whose company Woods Communications has been producing the Tour de France for NBC for over 30 years and last year provided major production support for the Olympics out of Paris.

A need for innovative solutions

“This means finding and sharing innovative solutions by all concerned, whether through young people, local communities or entrepreneurs. We consider the private sector, including yacht clubs such as the YCM, a crucial part of this approach. There are a lot of good ideas out there that need to be communicated to a wider audience, and we need to highlight them,” said Woods.

Crucial, however, Woods further noted, is to focus on youth as “they are the future.” To support this vision, some 150 pupils from Monegasque schools and the MYC’s own sailing school were invited on board WIKI to learn more about the Mediterranean and why it is so crucial for young people to be involved. “I am always impressed how engaged, enthusiastic and interested young people are about the sea. They readily grasp the importance of, and want to learn more about the world’s oceans, asking pertinent and often searching questions.” said WIKI’s skipper Bill Bond, a HelpSaveTheMed founding member, veteran sailor and instructor.

As the team explained, WIKI’s purpose is to circumnavigate the Mediterranean while visiting 24 countries and territories over the next three years and to serve as a critical focal point for creating awareness through storytelling. “This can be anything from writing, filming, photography, cartooning and even art,” said Girardet, editor of Global Geneva magazine and an award-winning foreign correspondent and author who has collaborated with Woods on various television documentary projects since the 1980s such as Afghanistan, Zambia, and Haiti.

“With some content produced by journalists, we aim to work editorially with scientists and other specialists to ensure that their concerns are readily understood by broader audiences,” Girardet added. “Engaging youth by helping them produce their own stories is imperative.”

The WIKI Expedition is already working with a group of Young Volunteers, such as Maisie Wynd-Smith, a geography and development student at McGill University in Montreal whose short video message was presented at the dinner-conference. “What I have learned over the past years is the value of addressing global challenges with local solution-oriented approaches,” she said. (See youth video presentation)

“Sailing with a Purpose” – Local school children aboard WIKI with filmmaker Tom Woods in port outside the Yacht Club de Monaco. (Photo: WIKI Expedition Archives)

Serving in the public interest

As both Woods and Girardet stressed, people and institutions need to become involved but for this to happen they need to become aware and communicate their concerns globally. “Everything the project produces will be provided for free in the public interest to partner media and other organizations,” said Woods. This includes institutions such as the United Nations and various NGOs, some of whom, such as the Mediterranean’s Plan Bleu incorporating over 40 organizations ranging from UNEP to IUCN, are already operating as Knowledge Partners. It is also developing partnerships with other marine initiatives, such as Polarquest.org, whose fleet of member sailboats is now focusing on citizen science in the Mediterranean with WIKI to provide information outreach.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Global Geneva is an editorially independent media partner of the WIKI Centennial Expedition: A multimedia venture to Help Save The Med. With a strong emphasis on youth, education and storytelling, the Project seeks to highlight the threats – and solutions – affecting the Greater Mediterranean.

As the founders of Help Save The Med see it, WIKI’s pan-Mediterranean youth and educational approach over a three-year-period is what will make a difference . Hosted by the Geneva-based non-profit association, Global Geneva Group, the project plans to organize regular one to five-day youth communications workshops linked to existing international conferences across the Mediterranean, such as the Nice Oceans Week in June 2025. If logistically possible, WIKI will be in port to host these events, but in some cases such workshops may take place in other locations

Together with commissioned articles, videos and photographic essays by professionals, the content these young people produce will ensure a constant stream of storytelling involving different social media formats, such as Tik-Tok, Instagram and YouTube.

The overall goal, Girardet specified, is to help “hone” youth communication skills, but also help them better understand the importance of credible information in an age rife with disinformation and misinformation on social media.” As part of their commitment, all youth participants from the Greater Mediterranean region, but also worldwide, will be expected to finalise their own stories by the end of each workshop with the help of their mentors.

Once the project is properly up and running, “we plan to hand over the daily running of the initiative to a core team of young professionals with veteran journalists, filmmakers and photographers such as ourselves providing oversight, historical context and background experience,” he said.

As both Woods and Girardet stressed, people and institutions need to become involved but for this to happen they need to become aware. “Everything the project produces will be provided for free in the public interest to partner media and other organizations,” said Woods. This includes institutions such as the United Nations and various NGOs, some of whom, such as the Mediterranean’s Plan Bleu incorporating over 40 organizations ranging from UNEP to IUCN, are already operating as Knowledge Partners. It is also developing partnerships with marine initiatives, such as Polarquest.org, whose fleet of member sailboats is now focusing on citizen science in the Mediterranean with WIKI to provide information outreach.

The overall goal, Girardet specified, is to help “hone” youth communication skills, but also help them better understand the importance of credible information in an age with so much disinformation and misinformation on social media.” As part of their commitment, all youth participants from the Greater Mediterranean region, but also worldwide, are expected to finalise their stories by the end of each workshop with the help of their mentors.

Drawing attention of the need to protect the Mediterranean’s endangered cultural heritage sites, such as Greece’s archaeological site of Mystras, is a crucial part of HelpSaveTheMed’s mission. (Photo: UNESCO World Heritage)

Sponsorship is vital

Sponsorship is vital

As Woods further clarified, this ambitious but unique enterprise can only happen and scale up with proper support. “Funding is crucial, but we’re also seeking partners with their own boats or accommodation or other imaginative ways to host those taking part and to cover costs,” he said. “This includes subsidizing the participation of young people unable to afford the workshops. We consider it vital to include participants from North Africa, parts of the developing world or, for instance, the suburbs of Marseille. Equally important is to invite local and international journalists to double up as mentors but also produce their own stories.”

The organizers wish to include Europe given that most of the Mediterranean’s over 300 million annual tourists come from countries such as Germany, France, Scandinavia and Switzerland. International Geneva, for example, with its array of organizations ranging from the UN Environmental Programme and International Committee of the Red Cross to EPFL and GESDA (Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator) will serve as a knowledge hub for the project.

Switzerland’s role as part of the Alps’ crucial ‘water-tower’ for the Mediterranean is particularly important. In addition to stories produced in and on the Mediterranean, a proposed week-long youth reporting trip by e-bike along the 815-km ViaRhona cycling trail from Geneva to the Camargue in the South of France intends to illustrate the importance of rivers, such as the Rhone, Po and even Nile, for the Mediterranean. The trip will enable participants to meet with local sources, such as mayors, artists, farmers and scientists, but also to improve their communication skills with Tik-Tokers recording their exploration daily. “It is important to be imaginative in the way we put across what is at stake,” said Girardet, who is based in Geneva.” It is key to understand the interaction between the land and the sea”.

The 815-km ViaRhona bike route from Geneva to the Camargue helps illustrate the importance of rivers for the Mediterranean, such as the Rhone here in Avignon. (Photo: ViaRhona)

Storytelling: an opportunity to raise awareness

“This is what HelpSaveTheMed represents for me,” said WIKI Youth Leader, Benjamin Philipps, a Paris-based marine biologist in his mid-20s. “It is an opportunity for communication to help raise awareness for the fight, the good fight, for the Mediterranean. Like Cousteau and Attenborough, we’re hoping to create some real impact. We live in the era of communication. It’s time to leverage it.”

As part of their commitment, youth participants are expected to produce their own stories, such as written or short video pieces, to be distributed widely on social media with the “best of” to be reproduced in Special Mediterranean print and e-editions of Global Insights Magazine, or in other news outlets.

“We need to make use of footage produced by the Med Project to show the importance of wildlife in the daily lives of ordinary people, and to inspire governments to better protect the Mediterranean,” said Dr Charlene Thiry, a 26-year-old Franco-Swiss veterinarian with the Medivet emergency unit in Lausanne, Switzerland. Having recently lived in Polynesia studying marine life and the environment, she now wants to learn how to improve her video skills to make films both professionally and for her environmental interests.

WIKI: A romantic vision of a bygone past – and future.

For some workshop participants, but also visiting journalists, scientists and other professionals, there will be an opportunity to board WIKI or other little ships such as Steve Royce’s Coaster to visit marine reserves or navigate the coast to illustrate their stories. Royce, a third generation sailor, sailed his boat from California to the Mediterranean 30 years ago and has only recently completed a full renovation to join the project.

“The key to this whole project,” stressed Woods, who first initiated the idea of “sailing with a purpose” five years ago, “is to persuade everyone to become actors not spectators. This is where WIKI and now Coaster can help. People are inspired by these little ships when they see them in port. They are romantic, sustainable, and conjure up visions of a bygone era and values that need to become part of the present and future. And of course WIKI provides a 100-year perspective.”

This is where HelpSaveTheMed can make a huge impact, added Woods. “If people wish to continue enjoying the Mediterranean, they need to ensure that we provide future generations with a healthy, living sea. But this means acting decisively now, because in a few years, it will be too late.” As Woods further noted: “The sea belongs to all of us. This will be our legacy.”

The Project’s first patrons are Mathilde and Sacha Lichine of the Chateau d’Esclans in southern France. Both came on board last year because they consider the project important. They also stressed, however, of the need for others to lend their support. Only in this manner will the project succeed. As Sacha Lichine put it at a luncheon hosted by the Lichines at the Chateau d’Esclans, “We sail our boats on it; we swim it. We need to create a movement to Help Save The Med”.

Majda Amadou is a French student interested in journalism and cultural issues based in Nice.

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