The power of togetherness: Young ocean voices, shared stories and collective creativity

By Stefanie Swanepoel, Mizizi Editor-in-Chief

What happens when young people, artists and storytellers come together to imagine a different future for our oceans? A Green Action Week gathering in Cape Town offered a glimpse of the possibilities.

On a Saturday morning in October, the Cape Town home base of Mizizi Magazine was transformed into a lively creative space. Music, poetry, laughter and conversation filled the air as young people from Masiphumelele and Ocean View explored their connections to the ocean and imagined what its future could look like.

The gathering, held on 17 October 2026, brought together 18 young people from The Ocean Hub SA for a day of creative storytelling hosted by Mycelium Media Colab, the cooperative behind Mizizi Magazine and the organisation coordinating Green Action Week in South Africa.

Green Action Week is a global initiative coordinated by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC), bringing together organisations around the world to explore more sustainable ways of living through sharing resources, knowledge and skills. The 2026 theme, Sharing Community, provided the inspiration for the day.

The young participants were nearing the end of a five-month Ocean Hub programme that had introduced them to new experiences in and around the ocean, from swimming and surfing to developing practical skills, confidence and an understanding of opportunities in the blue economy.

For many, the ocean had become more than a place to visit. It was a source of learning, connection, possibility and perhaps a future livelihood.

My ocean, our ocean, future ocean

The day began with a circle, meditation and music before participants divided into three groups, naming themselves the Ocean Benders, Divines and Sisonke.

Moving between creative stations, they explored three interconnected questions: What does the ocean mean to me? What does it mean to our communities? And what kind of ocean future do we want to create?

Through land art, collage, poetry, rap and music, the young people expressed their experiences and hopes in different ways. Some worked with shells, stones and natural materials to create artworks. Others pieced together images and words, turning individual reflections into collective stories.

There was no expectation that everyone should express themselves in the same way. The activities created space for different voices, talents and ways of knowing.

As the day unfolded, individual contributions became something larger. Photographs, artworks, lyrics and reflections were brought together in an enormous handmade zine, or magazine, capturing the group’s collective relationship with the ocean.

By the afternoon, the young people were sharing their creations and performing together, their stories woven into a celebration of the ocean and the communities connected to it.

Sharing more than resources

While the day centred on the ocean, it also offered a practical demonstration of the sharing economy.

Mycelium members contributed their time, creative skills and materials, from facilitation and photography to poetry, design and music. Ocean Hub facilitators brought their relationships with the young people and their experience of the programme. Others helped document the gathering and assemble the zine.

The event was made possible through these contributions rather than a conventional exchange of money for services. Skills, knowledge, relationships and generosity became the resources that made everything happen.

This is central to the idea of a Sharing Community: recognising that communities already hold an abundance of knowledge, creativity and capacity that can be mobilised through cooperation.

It is also fundamental to Mycelium Media Colab’s approach to regenerative storytelling, which seeks to move beyond telling stories about communities towards creating opportunities for people to tell their own stories.

The young people were not simply subjects of an environmental awareness activity. They were the artists, storytellers and creators shaping its messages.

The connections that make change possible

Behind the gathering was a web of relationships built over many years. Mycelium members, Ocean Hub facilitators, photographers, artists and supporters came together through overlapping networks of environmental action, creative practice, youth development and community engagement.

Representatives from SSNC also attended, witnessing how a global campaign could take shape through local relationships and creativity.

For Mycelium, the day reflected the cooperative’s founding belief that meaningful change grows through connection, collaboration and the sharing of skills and resources.

The giant zine became a tangible expression of this approach. Each photograph, poem, image and word contributed to a shared creation that no single person could have produced alone.

And perhaps that was the most important message of the day: imagining a different future for our oceans, our communities and our planet is not something we have to do alone.

Sometimes it begins simply by coming together, listening to one another and discovering what we can create when everyone has something to contribute.

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