The last two weeks of the Race for the Baltic campaign have been spent cycling along the Polish coastline, partnering with several different NGOs. The team has been involved in many events from beach clean ups, to public awareness activities to study visits with researchers and local activists.
Race for the Baltic has spent almost two weeks cycling the coastline of Poland. The team started their trip at the Marine Station in Hel with Klub Gaja ย where they celebrated Day of the Fish. After this the team cycled back up the coast to Krynica Morska and back down to Gdynia where they partnered with Our Earth Foundation (OEF) and met up with politician Dariusz Szwed (whom cycled with the team to Miedzyzdroje) for two beach clean ups where anyone interested could help join OEF and Race for the Baltic to pick up trash on the beach.
On August 5th, the team continued to Slupsk where they were met by Artur Furdyna from TRIIPG ย where they together visited a local water sanitation plant and the Slupia Valley National Landscape Park where cyclists and team members toured the park, and learned about fish passes and fish counters.
The team continued along the coast to Kolozberg where they met up with WWF Poland and presented the campaign to the public and media, where they also collected signatures and helped children paint fish for the Paint-a-Fish campaign.
Finally, the team completed their Poland tour by visiting Tomasz Olechwir, director of the Marine Research station in Miedzyzdroje. Here the team learned about the research conducted at the station and also got a tour of the local national museum. And lastly, before entering Germany, the team met with Piotr Gruszka from the Polish Ecological Club at MIR in Swinoujscie.
In total, nearly two weeks were spent working with NGOs that FISH has had the pleasure of collaborating with before. It was a great opportunity to get more hands on experience of how to reach out to the Polish public, while learning from local NGOs how to best relay our message.