Three organizations in this project have united their unique forces to create a transformative experience of healing and climate activism through creative arts. We have combined sailing, performing arts, and non-formal education to create a high-quality artistic performance as a means to reach out to people, create space to reflect on climate crises, and try to transform a story of destruction into a story of healing and hope. As action triggers action - can our art create a ripple effect for climate activism that can spread across the sea? Ripples has been a one-year long collaborative project involving Acting for Climate from Norway, Norpas ry from Finland and Hawila Project from Denmark.. Acting for Climate contributed creativity, expertise in performance, and brought a group of young talented artists to the project. Hawila Project brought their experience in sailing and knowledge of sustainable community living, along with expertise in sailing ships. Norpas ry contributed their experience in engaging the public through workshops and activities using non-formal learning, with a particular focus on communication.
Much research on climate psychology has shown that youth around Europe increasingly experience climate anxiety. Emotion of hopelessness, grief over environmental losses, and disconnection. Youth has been already disproportionately burdened by emotional stress caused by COVID pandemic and its direct or indirect consequences such as loneliness or unemployment. To add cross-cutting anxiety due to changing climate builds an additional stressor. Studies highlight that if experienced intensively, climate anxiety paralyzes a person, leads to inaction, apathy and, hence, jeopardizes a young person’s dreams, aspirations, or potential. It can also, in contrast, be a resource for new opportunities to grow, connect and build resilience. This entails that a person finds, along with others, space to deal with their emotions and is offered a constructive activity to do something about the changing climate. With the invasion of the Russian federation in Ukraine, among other crises on the global agenda, the climate subject seems to fade away from the public eye and attention. However, it remains at the forefront of the minds of youth. We care about our future; we are the future, and we want to take action.