Steph Gabriel, founder of Oceanzen, was first introduced to us when she arrived at the inaugural #RadLivin in Sydney. Full of passion and a desire for change, she continued to create her sustainable swimwear label, OceanZen. After hearing about ING Direct Dreamstarter program at #RadLivin 2017, she decided that it was time to grow her brand even bigger and produce a larger impact on the world while inspiring others to do the same. She’s currently crowdfunding HERE to create massive change – saving the world one bikini at a time!
Words of inspiration from Steph Gabriel on how you can make a positive impact too:
“Right now, a movement is happening, whether you know it or not. We are millennials, change makers, rule breakers. We are all about change. Change for human rights and change for environmental responsibility. Every corner you turn, every social media post, someone is voicing their opinion for change – a change to make the world a better place.
My opinion for environmental change has lead me on an incredible adventure over the last 7 years and it all began when I packed my bags and left Sydney in 2009, to wander the world for 3 endless years. During that time I ended up on a small Caribbean island and lived a lifestyle of complete utter bliss, what commonly is referred to island life. My day job was working with wild stingrays, crazy right? Yep! My role was to dive down, handle and feed them to come to the surface so tourists could touch their wings and learn about marine life. This chapter completely awakened my soul, truly connecting with the ocean and marine life in ways I had never even dreamed. I knew each of the 45 stingrays personalities and they each had names.
The downside of working in the ocean for 8 hours a day is that I started to notice abnormalities, I could see that the stingrays were being overfed by the 30 or so boats that came to the sandbar 4 times a day with new tourists, causing them to depend on humans for food, I could see plastic cups flying overboard and more so I could see rubbish in the ocean that was year’s old. How were humans being so disrespectful to something that was so beautiful? And how did I not even think about where our rubbish was going before? I couldn’t understand, and more so, I wanted it to stop. I came back home, did the whole degree thing, amongst some other wild chapters working with marine life, and it only made me more passionate for change.
I wanted a voice for sustainability, so I dived straight into the deep blue abyss and created a platform where people would learn and listen, which today is OceanZen Bikini.
Technology today is allowing change, and we as society are pushing to unreachable limits. The fabric we use is made from recycled plastic bottles and fishing nets from the ocean! Sound weird? Soon enough, this will be the norm. Repurposing waste into new products. Skateboards are being made from fishing nets. Leather can be made out of pineapple or mushroom skin. Our generation of newly created entrepreneurs are the CHANGE MAKERS, and we will change the world for the better.
If you are wanting to launch something that inspires change, that is environmentally or socially responsible, do it! Join the movement, and do it today. You have a whole community of change makers waiting to support your journey.
And if you are wanting to help make a positive impact on our environment, below are 3 small changes you can make to your daily lifestyle, small changes that can help make a BIG change.
1. Reduce or completely cut out your use of single use plastic; this means saying no to plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic straws etc. Every piece of plastic ever created still exists today, and as much as we would love to make an endless supply of bikinis out of water bottles (and fishing nets) from the ocean, we would much rather see a plastic-free ocean and world.
2. Go sustainable! Support ethical and sustainable businesses in all sectors.
Big corporations are major contributors to plastic packaging and do not often support ethical or sustainable businesses or manufacturing practices, which is a huge concern to not only our environment but to the communities producing too. Make the choice to support the organisations that are doing good for our environment.
3. Eat sustainably and responsibly
There are so many amazing documentaries out there that are full of WOW factor knowledge on the meat and fishing industry. Not saying become a vegan or vegetarian, that is completely your choice, more so a ‘part-time vegetarian’ if you will. Find out where your meat or seafood is coming from; was it factory farmed? Has your seafood been caught sustainably? Take note of how much meat you are consuming every week/day and re-assess if your eating meat sustainably.
Some of my favourite documentaries are ‘Cowspiracy’ and ‘Earthlings’ (be prepared for this one though).
www.oceanzenbikini.com
@oceanzen_bikini
Support Steph’s Crowd Funding project here. X
