Small Islands and the Currents of Change: A Case Study on Ocean Literacy Through Storytelling in the Caribbean

There is more to see on a small island than just sun, sea and sand. I know I caught you with those ‘s’ words, but, alas, we now meet the ‘s’ word that so deters many of us. Science. There is so much science at play in small islands, qualitative and quantitative. As a young girl visiting the beach of my island home, I could see in short time-frames how my favourite place was changing. Shells swapped for plastic caps, wildlife disappearing and simply the taste of the sea water changing from what it was. I felt so helpless, seeing all this happening and not being able to do anything about it.

As I got older the talk of the time was ‘global warming’ and I came up with crazy, nonsensical ideas about refrigerating the perimeter of the ice caps, super condensing forests and even harnessing energy from active volcanoes… Well, maybe not all of the ideas were crazy but in the mind of a 10 year old in the 90’s from a country without internet at that time and leaders who prioritized oil and gas, they were. I also loved Mermaids, so the people around me didn’t take my imaginings seriously.

I learned by living. This is something very distant now, children have all the answers at the tip of their thumbs and only a scroll or keyword away. In my youth, my imagination brought me closer to understanding. As I got older still, I realized that learning is different for everyone, and education without entertainment is definitely less engaging.

Time flowed on, just like water, and I fulfilled the childhood dream of an academic career in the natural sciences with Marine Biology being a focus. I then diversified into the social sciences, finding myself enjoying the fusion of fields, realizing I had a knack for blending many different skillsets. It seems my imagination picked up these capacities and I had an epiphany. When I brought together my art, scientific academics and childhood dreams, I was able to create Mertrina, a mermaid character that bridges ocean literacy and fantasy.

I learned from the children I interacted with that the Ocean has grown into even more of an unknown, even more unreachable and unfathomable than when I was little, even when the coast is a few minutes drive away. We see the ocean every day as Islanders yet we are disconnected from it. We don’t even know how to swim. Our education system is focused on academia, and sometimes the day is so full we don’t get the time to even imagine. I thought about my own childhood and how meeting a mermaid talking about the ocean and how to protect it would have impacted me. Through different books with different writing styles and presentation of the same science, I felt I could reach every type of learner.

The reality of a grown woman creating something quirky is one not very accepted in many societies. No one sees the struggle as a graduate to find employment, the constant short term contracts and patriarchal workplace systems. There is a great deal of competition, as well as corruption, and archaic perceptions, that bar capable and competent women and dare I say mothers, from being adequately employed. I was always under qualified, over qualified or expecting, all barriers to securing a job apparently. In order to survive, desperation becomes the catalyst and from it anything is possible. Thus at age 30, Mertrina the Mini Marine Biologist Mermaid was brought into the world.

My hope is to bring wonder back, to connect everyone, not just children, to the water. Juggling everything is never easy, but I do hope to be able to find a balance that will allow me to attain at least a little stability in this unstable human world. We must reconnect with nature, understand where our ecosystem services are coming from and try to conserve our natural resources. I advocate widely for nature based solutions and the integration of local indigenous traditions and knowledge in these activities. Through poetry, visual art and storytelling, we can transform behaviours and change the trajectory of the decline we are seeing first hand.

Mertrina lives in the Caribbean Sea, but as we know all water is connected so we don’t know where she will visit one day! Sea you soon!

Written by: Katrina Khan-Roberts