Ilias Tsakiris, CEO of Hellenic Hull, at Lloyd’s List: Today’s primary school kids are the ones who will handle shipping’s green transition. The time to start introducing the sea and its value to kids from primary school
What connects some of the tiniest and most remote primary schools in Europe with the decarbonisation of global shipping?
The obvious answer is: not much… yet. However, the dots linking them can be seen clearly by Hellenic Hull Management, a Greece- and Cyprus-based marine insurance company, that is determined to join them up in a productive way.
Hellenic Hull, best known as manager of the American Hellenic Hull Insurance Company, now renamed American Club (Europe), is a founding member of the Poseidon Principles for Marine Insurance and the first marine insurance company to sign up to UNEP’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance Initiative and the Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Initiative.
But it is not one of those organisations that contents itself with signing on to ESG initiatives as a box-ticking or PR exercise.
Back in 2019, it began focusing on the needs of primary schools in some of the remotest parts of Greece — tiny islands in the eastern Aegean — some of them with no more than a handful of kids left to educate.
Its first act that year was to donate a library of books to the school on tiny Arkoi island, near Patmos in the Dodecanese island group, that has a mere 30 to 40 inhabitants. At the time, the school was the smallest in the European Union, with one teacher catering to a single pupil.
The following year, Hellenic Hull provided technical equipment to Gavdos primary school, at the southernmost point of the EU. In September that year, it came up with the idea of an event for the two schools to ring their bells together on the opening day of the new school year.
From that point on, Hellenic Hull has aimed to develop a network of schools it supports. Since 2022 it has worked in collaboration with the Hellenic Marine Environment Protection Association (Helmepa) to develop programmes for the schools that are focused on the blue economy.
Subject matter ranges from the marine environment to the wide range of activities and career opportunities linked to the sea. The programmes include games, theatrical events, beach cleanups, and many more elements in addition to conventional learning.
How far Hellenic Hull’s initiative has developed can be gauged from a December 15 online Christmas party it organised for primary schools on the islands of Thasos, Lemnos, Samothrace, Ikaria, Skyros, Rhodes, Kalymnos, Amorgos, Kefalonia, Meganisi, Sikinos, Thymaina, Schinousa, Kastellorizo, Nisyros, Chios, Samos and Skopelos.
Another six islands, including Arkoi and Gavdos, were unable to connect, which illustrated the ongoing need for further investment in communications with the country’s small islands.
“Technology gives us the ability to introduce remote ideas to schools even with just two or five or 10 kids and it provides huge encouragement and support for the teachers who are dedicated to these small communities,” said Hellenic Hull managing director Ilias Tsakiris.
What started as purely social altruism has fused with the company’s commitment to the development of the blue economy and the sustainability of the shipping industry.
Under the title ‘E-sealearning’, the programme is now focusing on creating an interactive online platform to facilitate permanent collaboration among schools in all the country’s island regions and to include all levels of education from primary schools up to universities.
Part of the aim is to provide courses in various aspects of the blue economy — from maritime studies to aquaculture, in co-operation with the University of the Aegean.
“If young people find out about the shipping professions at all, they find out about them very late, essentially when their career preferences are already formed,” said Tsakiris.
“The time to start introducing the sea and its value to kids is from primary school,” he said. “Where better to start than with kids and communities that are surrounded by sea and need support and connection with other communities and schools in similar areas of the country?”
According to Tsakiris, there has been a near-complete lack of grassroots efforts to educate young people early enough in the range of opportunities provided by shipping, the wider maritime sphere and the marine environment.
“Once people get into the maritime industry they tend not to want to leave it, but there is a lack of awareness,” he said. “We want to introduce our professions to young people and we believe Greece can be a pioneer in this. If this programme is successful it can be a good platform for other countries that have a lot of islands, from Europe to the Philippines, and that want to introduce marine into their curriculum.”
Tsakiris noted that today’s primary school students will be joining the work force around 2040, or at least half-way down the road to the International Maritime Organization’s deadline of “by or about 2050” for achieving net zero GHG emissions from the industry.
“These are the people who will be handling the decarbonisation and green future of the industry,” he said. “We need these guys on board now.”
