SAVING LIVES AND LIVELIHOODS

SPECIFIC SOCIAL-OCEAN PRIORITY SUITE OF CHALLENGES TO SOLVE: Overfishing, Pollution, Climate Change, also Drowning, Addiction, and Illiteracy.
* As 6,000 Vietnamese children drown annually (according to the British Medical Journal 2018).
* Given Vietnam's horrific sea history, and corresponding national fear of the sea.
* 75% of the world is water and RISING.
* Vietnam is in the top 5 most vulnerable coastlines to climate change.

* Vietnam is in the top 5 most polluted seas.
* Vietnam's Prime Minister called for pollution solutions to be top of all agendas, in G7 and GEF meetings in Quebec and Danang in June 2018, but this message has not filtered through/down - or is too overwhelming for local government.

* Vietnam's coastal fisherfolk are arguably the most vulnerable and lowest caste communities.
* Without access to quality teaching, technology, and interesting learning options. 
* Often limited by Vietnamese language. 
* Some children too poor for school.

* The outcome of 2005 fishery surveys of central southern Vietnam was overfishing.
* But fisherfolk did not have alternative livelihoods to overfishing, biodiversity destruction, and fossil fuel use, or a clear healthy common cause to cultivate community cohesion after CoVid lockdowns.

The SOLUTION uses the power of watersports, film, translation, skills, and awareness in WATERSPORTS FOR CLIMATE ACTION WORKSHOPS to enable positive change:

Specifically,
* Taking fisherfolk off overfishing, biodiversity destruction, and fossil fuel use.
* Translating the existing ocean skills of fisherfolk to watersports.
* In turn, 24 fisherfolk coach local children and international school children swimming/watersports skills, in a circular model with UN global goals at core.
* Watersports include: Traditional coracles, boogie boards/surf skills, sailing, Stand Up Paddling, knots with raft building), in the workshops.
* Visual link to product demo => https://bit.ly/product-photo-examples, or
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FAEm1lG85c_j1R8no54Lv69woxwOutku?usp=sharing.
* Workshop capacity can be up to 150 children in a morning.

OUTCOME examples:
* Fisherfolk (24) are now Vietnam's top watersports coaches/athletes, and have coached 6,000+ children watersports skills.
* MANTA can now issue IYT internationally recognised certificates for sailors (www.iytworld.com).
* IYT immediately increases MANTA's library for the children, with free online courses, which are being translated to Vietnamese - to help minimise marginalisation or maximise inclusion.
* The watersports for climate action skills double as employability skills.

* The watersports workshops help children:
- Reduce drowning risks.
- Increase climate action skills.
- Learn about and take small steps of personal and civic action to improve their communities and the world.
N.B. Action is directed into beneficial skills and prize winning. As protesting or giving children a political voice is illegal in Vietnam.

- Develop the love children have of their ocean to help protect it.
- Raise their awareness on social-ocean priorities.
- Source pollution solutions => To be scaled into a Pollution Solution Prize to help raise awareness.
- Raise their employability skills, in Vietnam's watersports capital.

* Enlightening/empowering videos are selected, and translated to Vietnamese to support the children with their solutions and learning techniques.
* Learning options include Visual, Audio, Reading, Kinesiological to help mimic the way people learn. Children take quizes to source the ways they learn best from time-to-time.
* Screening and dubbing videos allows maximising of inclusion for both literate and illiterate children to the watersports workshops.
* Children are divided by their height and age to ensure each session is relevant for their capacity.
* Coaching is in small sequential steps with enquiry, and monitoring and evaluation is immediately obvious and addressable.
* Monitoring and evaluation includes immediate/ongoing assessment of skills, awareness. Plus delivery of UN global goals, while enabling government.
* Video library examples on MANTA's youtube channel (in Vietnamese and English):

Technology used for solution and scaling includes: 
- Basic laptops, projectors
- WITH THE OPPORTUNITY TO ABSORB MORE TECHNOLOGY FOR LEARNING INTO THE WORKSHOPS VIA MIT'S SOLVE OPPORTUNITY - IF THIS APPLICATION IS SUCCESSFUL...

SERVING A RANGE OF TARGET POPULATIONS.
*Improving LEARNING/QUALITY OF LIFE.
*MANTA's WATERSPORTS FOR CLIMATE ACTION WORKSHOPS provides a base/platform/livelihoods.
*Growing communities/networks skills/awareness:

1. WATERSPORTS TRAINED FISHERFOLK (24+).
- The most vulnerable, lowest caste, relatively uneducated communities.
- i.e., Rural, remote, underserved communities.
- Including children too poor for school, yet to read/write.

THE SOLUTION:
*Translates their existing ocean skills to watersports with livelihoods to service Vietnam's growing watersports/tourism.
*Coaches civic action to improve their communities/the world.
*Transforms them as Vietnam's top watersports coaches/athletes in Vietnam's watersports capital, coaching others.
*Provides pride/confidence in their skills, especially coaching international school children.
*Lets them issue IYT internationally recognised certificates for sailors (www.iytworld.com).
*Recycles/reuses/renews governing body and IYT technological guidelines to ensure the technological MANTA program is relevant for Vietnam communities.
*Cultivates community cohesion with their younger brothers/sisters in the bay.
*Having taught over 6,000+ children watersports to date.

2. CHILDREN (6,000+)
2a. The fisherfolk children:
*Learn to swim.
*Reduce their risks of drowning.
*Develop the love they have for the ocean to help protect it.
*While having fun/bonding with other local students.

2b. International school children lacking watersports skills, learn from the watersports trained fisherfolk: 

*Realising many watersports benefits, including physical/mental health.
*In turn, growing community credits to pass school exams, while automatically delivering global goals.

Students/sponsors explain more in short award winning videos: http://bit.ly/EIS-2019, http://bit.ly/EIS-2018, http://bit.ly/AIS-2017, http://bit.ly/local-children-2021, http://bit.ly/climate-action-task, https://youtu.be/7r8ZMwko0lo. 

3a. The solution enables Vietnam's GOVERNMENT.
Government asked MANTA's founder to help develop watersports.
*She connected Vietnam to the governing body of watersports, to ensure a safe/legal framework for sports development/LEARNING DEVELOPMENT.
*She drew Vietnam's national watersports plan on an International Olympic Committee scholarship, and secured 4 years IOC training funding.
*She delivered the plan to Vietnam's Ministry at the International Scientific Sports Conference, Hanoi, November 2012.
*Her brief at international governing body meetings: To advise Vietnam's Vice Minister of Sport on 'all issues of sailing world wide'. 
*She steps back to navigate around local/international corruption/mafia.
*She won high court cases to protect the ENVIRONMENT from illegal land grab mudslides. 

3b.*She currently helps a 9 YEAR OLD SURFER GIRL represent Vietnam in the Olympics. Connecting her family with Vietnam's Canoeing Rowing Sailing Federation, Vietnam Olympic Committee, and Ministry of Sport.
GIVING HOPE for the surfer girl (potentially another Sky Brown), her family, later the local community, and perhaps Vietnam.

3c.VIETNAM's SPORTS MINISTRY ratification is here: 
https://bit.ly/gov-ratification.

4a.Growing THE NETWORK OF SAILORS/watersports people.
*In 2008, sailing and archery were to be axed as Olympic sports. Considered a sports for kings.
*MANTA grew the reach of sailing with a legal framework for Vietnam, increasing inclusion/minimising marginalisation.

4b.Motivating with new watersports:
Most recently *Laser dinghy foiling, and *wing foiling.

5. MANTA HOSTS RESEARCH STUDENTS/FELLOWS:
For example, Emi Koch, Fulbright National Geographic Fellow of Scripps Institution of Oceanography: https://bit.ly/Emi-Vietnam.
*Emi reconnected MANTA with local WHALE TEMPLE KEEPERS, who double as heads of the local fisherfolk community.
*She grows learning for civic action:
*Discussing/*Drawing SMALL SCALE FISHERIES GUIDELINES for the UN FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION, in Rome, where she currently presents SSF guidelines.
*Emi returns to develop fisheries research and awareness in 2024, toward health and sustainability of local communities/habitats, thanks to a small grant she has recently won.

MANTA's FIFTEEN YEAR OLD TEAM:
*Grows high quality skills within a simple clear. internationally legal framework allowing fisherfolk/national coaches to realise/appreciate their growing skills.
*Increases employability potential, while sharing skills with others.
*Provides a watersports barter trade.
*In a circular model, with UN global goals at core.
*CEMENTING/CULTIVATING COMMUNITY COHESION.
*Allows MANTA's founder to stand back letting the team lead by developing their own solutions relevant to local communities and Vietnam as new opportunities arise.
*The team sources seasonal sites and selects community representatives to train up to ensure long-term continuity.
*The team discusses all bookings/new developments/strategies as they arise in the annual calendar, and weekly/monthly schedule.
*Most recently aligning with the IYT (www.iytworld.com) program for sailing development, and navigating around the issues which have so far prevented Vietnam from having sailing along its 3,500km+ coast.
*Aligns with the Vice Minister of Sports vision to see MANTA sailing skills scale along Vietnam's coast, as Vietnam's 3 sports university students take their skills back to their provinces.

The more the coaches:
*Appreciate their skills, progression, and ability to excel (to national/international level), the more the coaches *share with others.
*A HEART WARMING process helping to thaw/heal ice.
*Helping pivot Vietnam's national fear of the sea.

*Coaches cherish the personal/community, physical/mental health benefits of watersports. Especially as an alternative to addiction (technical or chemical).
*They share the benefits and quality of life skills with their younger 'brothers and sisters' in the community.
*They grow watersports and MANTA's WATERSPORTS FOR CLIMATE ACTION WATERSPORTS, to help pivot social-ocean priority challenges.

FACILITATING THIS, MANTA IS WELL-POSITIONED AS VIETNAM's:
* 1st and only official sailing school.
* 1st social-ocean enterprise.
* 1st organisation to be authorised to issue internationally recognised (IYT) certificates for sailors. [MANTA's founder gave a similar opportunity to government 15 years earlier (which has yet to progress).]

* THE FOCUS: The set up and standards allow MANTA to successfully raise skills and awareness for watersports/climate action, with its many benefits.
* Sponsored watersports workshops allow MANTA to coach local children.

- Generating significate community cohesion connecting local children with their national team local brothers/sisters, IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE, RELEVANT TO THEIR BAY: Vietnam's watersports capital.
- Coaches allow children to take pride in the skills they can see develop to successfully master their coastal ocean equipment, relevant to a broader vison.
- Increasing (ocean) adaptation and (climate) resilience.
- Feedback forms after MANTA's workshops can help understand further needs of the children.

MANTA helps enable government.
*MANTA's founder gives probono advice to government when government calls. Most recently connecting Vietnam's Canoeing Rowing Sailing Federation with the designers/producers/managers of Olympic class equipment to help Vietnam compete and gain experience with the 23rd Asian Beach Games, in Cambodia (5-17/5/2023).

MANTA appreciates the international sailing network (which is often 200 years ahead of Vietnam in the region).
*MANTA has recently accepted sponsored dinghies from a certified Olympic class builder in Thailand, supplying the Asian Beach Games.
*The head of provincial Border Police has offered to help with paperwork to help navigate/grow the sport.

MANTA’s 15 year-old team, welcomes the opportunity to align with SOLVE/MIT expertise, opportunities and networks to upgrade its social-impact-technology-based-capacity to pivot/solve its suite of social-ocean priority challenges.
- Including but not limited to the following areas:

Financial and Technical
*Review, sharpen and upgrade:
-Strategic business planning.
-Monitoring and evaluation in general, and specifically UN global goals.

*Review and strengthen financial sustainability to withstand shocks and build wealth.
-Address technological and digital literacy gaps with the local staff and community. A rural, remote and underserved community.
N.B. MANTA will take the MITx course “Business and Impact Planning for Social Enterprises” and TRANSLATE TO VIETNAMESE FOR THE TEAM.

A. ADDING AN INNOVATION AND ADDITIONAL LIVELIHOOD in a circular model.
*Specifically adding a POLLUTION SOLUTION PRIZE.
-To help raise awareness to stop ocean pollution at source and encourage zero-waste lives. 
-Generating FISHERFOLK/LOCAL COMMUNITY ARTWORK to complement the existing global interest in VIETNAMESE ART to help develop community skills and awareness, and bring more guests to Vietnam’s watersports capital.
-Exhibiting winning art for SALE in local bars/restaurants to help sustainability of the prize.
-Sourcing initial funds to create the prize to motivate and focus the artwork and pollution solutions. This can copy Vietnam's Dogma Prize (Dogmaprize.com).
-Given that Mui Ne has been ghost-towned by 2 years’ lockdown and a year of shortened tourist visas.
-Fisherfolk art has beeen a success in Zhoushan island, China: 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/culture/art/2015-11/24/content_22512994.htm.
CONTEXT: When Chairman Mao encouraged a change from traditional bamboo paintings. The OUTCOME: Everything the fisherfolk painted looked like fish (the birds, the people, other animals and plants). The naive art had global appeal.

*Reviewing/realising the many benefits of developing a range of TECH BASED art skills, including local fisherfolk confidence and giving local youth an alternative to unhealthy addictions. -For example,
-Reviewing AI Art generation apps., like the Playform Platform: https://www.playform.io.
-Upgrading videography/photography editing skills for MARKETING. 

B. SET UP OF THE PRIZE will benefit from a LEGAL REVIEW to ensure copyright issues of artwork have been appropriately addressed.

C. DEVELOPING MANTA's EXISTING WATERSPORTS FOR CLIMATE ACTION WORKSHOPS TO HELP SAVE LIVES AND LIVELIHOODS.
*The cost of each workshop is USD5,000.

D. EXPOSURE/SCALING - aligning with SOLVE/MIT networks as appropriate to help raise MANTA's profile to reduce market barriers and increase the number of MANTA guest bookings. Especially as MANTA can now issue IYT internationally recognised certificates for sailors.

E. MANTA welcomes SOLVE/MITs reviews to help highlight OPPORTUNITY GAPS to increase MANTA's effective social-ocean impact and align with additional opportunities which MANTA may have overlooked, given MANTA's limited resources.

A. WATERSPORTS WORKSHOPS FOR CLIMATE ACTION TO PIVOT THE SUITE OF SOCIAL-OCEAN PRIORITY CHALLENGES

Innovation
MANTA is:
*Vietnam's 1st and only official sailing school.
*Vietnam's only social ocean enterprise.
-Progressing alternative livelihoods for overfishing.
-Promoting health/wealth for people/planet.

Catalyze broader positive impact:
*Align, if possible, with the expertise of BLUE MARINE FOUNDATION, to cultivate kelp forests and oyster beds. To increase the health of depleted marine ecosystems. Given Vietnam's high population and tourism pressures. To help produce FOOD FOR THE FUTURE.

 Could catalyze the health of marine ecosystems and marine food serverely depleted by high population and tourism. 

*Oyster beds can help reduce erosion and clean seawater via filter feeding.

*Vietnam's proposed dyke system could include a salt water pool copying Australian expertise.
*As there is no public pool in Vietnam's watersports capital.
*WORLD BANK's 2020 Resilient Shore's report highlighted Mui Ne as one of Vietnam's 5 hotspots for attention. I understand that the program has been paused as Vietnam does not like to borrow money. SOLVE/MIT may see potential alternatives to World Bank's gap.

B. THE POLLUTION SOLUTION PRIZE to help pivot social-ocean priorities.
*Catalyzes awareness to help stop pollution at source and encourage zero waste lives, for a cleaner Vietnamese East Sea.
*Generates VIETNAMESE FISHERFOLK ART with respect to the global interest in Vietnamese art. Plus the success of Zhoushan fisherfolk art.

Potential positive impacts for the markets with innovations A. and B.

A. Continue with what has worked well with MANTA and capitalise on that, with relevant creativity.

B. Determine if the SOLVE/MIT opportunities can significantly increase positive impact for MANTA's capacity to pivot the suite of social-ocean priority challenges.

C. Use the 9 months SOLVE/MIT opportunities to research impact goals forthe next year and next five years.

MANTA's impact goals include:
* PIVOTING SOCIAL OCEAN PRIORITY CHALLENGES highlighted in MANTA's video outline: https://bit.ly/1minute-.

By:
* Raising watersports skills.
* Raising relevant environmental awareness.
* Enabling government.
* Delivering UN global goals highlighted below.

QUALITATIVE measurement/explanation is given by students/sponsors in short award winning videos:

• http://bit.ly/EIS-2019,
• http://bit.ly/EIS-2018, 
• http://bit.ly/AIS-2017, 
• http://bit.ly/local-children-2021,
• https://bit.ly/SSIS--2015,
• http://bit.ly/climate-action-task, 
• https://youtu.be/7r8ZMwko0lo.

The SOLVE/MIT opportunity would be used to measure MANTA's progress towards QUANTITATIVE measurement of the impact goals.

MANTA's theory of change, uses the power of watersports, film, and translation, to pivot social-ocean priority challenges (overfishing, pollution, climate change, also drowning, addiction and illiteracy), raising skills, awareness, and enabling government.

MANTA takes (24) fisherfolk off overfishing, off endangered habitats and biodiversity, off fossil fuel use. Translating their existing ocean skills to watersports. In turn, watersports trained fisherfolk coach large groups of children watersports and climate change survival skills.
The students (6,000+ to date), simultaneously help sustain the fishermen's new livelihoods, Vietnam's national team training, in a circular model, with UN global goals at core.

MANTA adapts the technology of sailing, summarised by ISAF/World Sailing governing body guidelines and the IYT program, to Vietnam.
This allows balancing the elements to navigate the sea.

MANTA welcomes the SOLVE/MIT opportunity to review technological solutions to upgrade MANTA's theory of change.

MANTA intends to use AI art to help develop fisherfolk art skills:
e.g., https://www.playform.io.

MANTA hosts research students who elucidate knowledge of local whale temple keepers who are also heads of the local fishing communities.
Next is a summary video from Emi Koch, Fulbright National Geographic fellow from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who returns in 2024 to research further. Ideally without research being cut short by lockdowns.
https://bit.ly/Emi-Vietnam.

MANTA maximizes both human and environmental biodiversity where possible. MANTA is open to all. MANTA minimises marginalisation by language/illiteracy where possible to maximise inclusion.

MANTA team is mainly Vietnamese 25/26 staff.
MANTA's founder has Irish ancestry, was born in Sarawak (diplomatic father and grandfather), studied in the UK, 2nd degree Hong Kong, was invited to work in Vietnam. She promotes girl power.

MANTA will enroll in your online course.

MANTA provides services directly to individuals, organizations, and to the government.

MANTA is currently funded by
*MANTA's founder's conservation salary.
*Selling services to individuals and large groups of clients, or organisations.

MANTA's capacity is up to 150 people in a watersports workshop.

MANTA has been lucky with sponsorship. The largest from Beyond Sport, Swedish Postcode Foundation, and Laureus Sport for Good (in 2020).

MANTA's work for Vietnam government is probono as a duty.

MANTA intends to scale with better marketing and exposure to wider networks.

MANTA does not know how to raise investment capital.

1. Here is a summary page of MANTA's large groups and sponsors so far:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jUlrwzUl_ZoO8ZbxWP6X72qpRgTKx7rc/view?usp=sharing.

2. MANTA's founder inputs her conservation salary of USD60K/year.

3. MANTA welcomes the opportunity to align with SOLVE / MIT expertise to upgrade.