On June 3, “All on board for Healthy Waters” paved the way for the forthcoming revision of the European directive on monitoring the quality of bathing water. The subject is particularly important just as summer returns and the swimsuits are out, but sometimes difficult to fathom. However, if you haven’t figured it out, all is not lost! From June 21 to 25, the Surfrider Europe campus in Biarritz is organizing its Digital Week on “water quality and users’ health”. Online courses, conferences and workshops – intended for an audience aged 16 and over – will give you the opportunity to become unbeatable in this area of Surfrider Europe expertise which affects us all.
La Digital Week: a new project designed by the Surfrider Europe campus
For years now, the Surfrider Europe Campus, whose mission is to educate the public on the themes of climate change, coastal planning, aquatic waste or water quality, has been offering educational workshops, interventions in schoolrooms and guided tours of its Campus space at the Association’s headquarters in Biarritz. In 2020, however, things did not always go as planned: many activities were cancelled due to confinement (lockdown) and the Campus had to find alternatives in order to continue raising public awareness, even from a distance! That is how Digital Week was born. This online educational program, which for a whole week shares pedagogical material relating to the Association’s areas of expertise, has emerged as a good way to inform the public about the issues relating to protecting the ocean while respecting barrier gestures!
Although it was initially a simple tool to respond to sanitary restrictions, the project’s success prompted Surfrider Europe to perpetuate Digital Week, and reorganize it in three stages each year: the first part, dedicated to water quality and users’ health, will take place shortly, between June 21 and 25, 2021.
What is happening concretely between June 21 and 25?
Throughout the week, documentaries and thematic files will be available on the Surfrider Campus and Surfrider Europe networks. An online conference will also help participants to better understand water quality issues and their potential impact on users’ health. The Digital Week session will open with the film Planète Océan by Yann Arthus Bertrand and Michael Pinot, which argues in favour of respect for the world we live in. This documentary will be an excellent start to the debate on the importance of water on Earth and how best to conserve it. Digital Week will also include discussions, conferences, DIY workshops and other documentaries on the search for ways to combat bacteriological and chemical pollution of aquatic spaces, and will provide all the necessary keys to understanding this area of Surfrider Europe’s expertise.
“Benefits the Ocean brings us”: an innovative conference to close the week
The event will end with a totally unique webinar combining scientific and medical approaches on the subject of “The Ocean & Well-being: 45 minutes to understand what it’s about”. This online conference will make room for Biarritz’s famous “White Bears” all-year-round swimming group and for Dr. Guillaume Barucq to testify on their experience, and will be an opportunity to spend an hour discussing the positive effects of the Ocean on human psychological and physical health. There will also be a question and answer session with the public – a good way of making citizens more aware of how the Ocean benefits their own health, thus prompting them to do more to protect it as far as possible.
While all the programs, documentaries and films of the week will be available free of charge on the various platforms, you will to register in advance for the closing conference. So don’t delay – enroll today! (link)
