A scheme that helps young people engage with blue spaces – coasts, rivers and estuaries – has drawn on the marine expertise of Sussex Wildlife Trust, UK.

Ten Blue Mentors’ who help deliver the Blue Influencers Scheme, spent two days on the trust’s wild beach training course in Eastbourne, East Sussex, learning skills to pass on to young people.

The Blue Influencers Scheme itself was created by education charity the Ernest Cook Trust, to remove barriers to young people accessing the outdoors, while helping them create meaningful connections to their local coasts and rivers. It is aimed particularly at young people living in areas of deprivation in coastal, riverine and estuary locations,

Set to run for three years, the £2.25 million Blue Influencers Scheme hopes to engage more than 4,000 young people, as well as over 15,000 community volunteers across England. The mentor training in Eastbourne was led by Mike Murphy and Natasha Sharma, learning officers from Sussex Wildlife Trust.

“We came at this from two angles - how do you engage young people in an environment that they are not familiar with and maybe not comfortable in, and how do we introduce new people to a coastal environment that, to begin with, might not look that interesting,” said Murphy.

“Our course is about inviting people to look at the marine environment in a new way and by doing so they connect with it, start to understand it and love it, and ultimately want to protect it.”

Activities included collecting and curating items on the beach, learning about and understanding tides, and ending each day with a litter pick, to help become more 'ocean connected'.

Sharma said: “The fact that they will be able to translate their experience to their blue space – in the case of rivers, that might include mudlarking – was fantastic for us.”