Es Nàutic's Setmana del Mar, awarded for almost three decades of environmental education

The Sant Antoni de Portmany Yacht Club's (Es Nàutic) Sea Week is a clear and evident example of the involvement and work of yacht clubs with society.

This environmental education and coexistence with the sea initiative of the Ibizan club is about to celebrate three decades of life and has more than deserved the first Timón Award for the Best Social and Sustainability Initiative in the marine field in the Balearic Islands.

The CN Sant Antoni de Portmany's Setmana del Mar (Sea Week) celebrates its twenty-ninth edition in 2024. It has been many years teaching children to get to know the sea because that is the best way for them to learn to take care of it and respect it. The idea breaks the local barriers of the municipality of Sant Antoni itself and is open to all schools in Ibiza. Through their efforts, by presenting their work and participating in the famous Eivissàpiens competition, Ibiza's fifth-graders earn the opportunity to take part in this initiative. "At first we had to go to the schools to encourage them to participate, but then there was so much demand that we had to hold a competition for entry," explains the technical director of the sports area of the CN Sant Antoni de Portmany, Kike Mas. "Only ten schools get the great prize of being part of the Setmana del Mar, so we decided to also do Un Día a la Mar, so that the rest of the participants can also enjoy this project," adds Mas.

In the 28 years of its existence, almost eleven thousand students have passed through the Setmana del Mar and Mas highlights the impact of the activity on education and the direct consequence they have noticed in the love of sailing, as 80 percent of the children then repeat this sport in the clubs, not only in Sant Antoni. However, Kike Mas is undoubtedly left with the perspective it brings to the children: "Many of them, now adults, greet us in the street because of the good memories they took away from the experience, we have raised their awareness and some of them are now biologists and the Setmana del Mar has helped them to make those decisions".

So many years of experience and dedication have allowed those in charge of the CN Sant Antoni to offer a wide range of activities during the Setmana del Mar, all related to the sea and the environment. There is coexistence, sailing days visiting beautiful places along the coast of Ibiza and Formentera, environmental activities... Mas says that the children especially enjoy going sailing and also the visit to the island of Conillera.

The Setmana del Mar was born in 1996 when a school in Sant Antoni approached the club because it had organised several activities, one of which was a Sea Week. At that time, as Kike Mas recalls: "Three very important things coincided: the school, the technicians at the club, Juan Blanco and Mercedes Pérez, and a club willing to do anything". Almost three decades later, this great environmental education initiative of the Sant Antoni sailing club is flourishing and year after year fulfilling its objective of educating children who are aware of the need to respect the wonderful natural environment that surrounds us.