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I am a social entrepreneur, with a vision to make marine life sustainable. As a fifth-generation fisherman, I am the first to study at University. I graduated from Athens University of Economics and Business in the top 10 percent of my class and have worked as a corporate trainer, encouraging communication and creativity. While studying, I founded Enaleia, which has been my full time job for the last two years. I am a TEDx speaker, an Ashoka Changemaker and an Angelopoulos-Clinton Fellow.
Eleftherios-Lampros Arapakis - Greek, Europe
2019 Winner | Fisherman and founder of Enaleia | Greek
Enaleia is a social enterprise with a vision to revolutionize the fishing sector by tackling the twin problems of overfishing and plastic pollution in the sea. In the last decades, Europe’s fish stocks have declined by 30 percent, while 8 million metric tons of plastic are thrown into the ocean annually. During our first project, we established Greece’s first professional fishing school, creating 30 jobs and motivating 10 new fishing boats to work with us. Our e-learning training program aims to attract and train more people in professional fishing, and Enaleia has also educated more than 130 fishermen in sustainable fishing. More than 60 participants have so far collected 2.5 tons of marine plastic monthly, which has been upcycled to create new products. We aim to incentivise fishermen to catch less fish and collect more plastic, and our goal is to collect 100 tons of plastic from the sea per year.
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NOTE: This content was shared online for the 2019 cycle of the Young Champions of the Earth programme and has not been updated. This listing does not constitute any endorsement by nor status with the UN Environment Programme.
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