Vanichanan Kongkerdlap

Thailand

Vanichanan Earn Kongkerdlap is a 16 year old student based in Bangkok, Thailand, and is a teen advocate for ocean conservation.

Walking down memory lane, I remembered my childhood taking place either at the beach or my house. My mom loved the ocean, the calming waves and the beautiful sunset. We both loved how peaceful it was, and although it was different from the city, it felt like home. As we sat down by the beach I remembered wondering what animals live below the surface. To learn that the world beneath said surface was dying out rapidly broke me as a kid, until I realized we could make a change. 

Earn along with her high school friends founded the Saving Sea Life project, with our only goal being to replenish the ocean back to what it once was. However as time went on we realized that Saving Sea Life wasn’t our only goal, our goal was to change the ocean. To connect the two worlds beneath and above the surface, we became Overturned Oceans. Our mission is to replenish Earth's ocean floors into what it once was whilst also taking into account the solution’s effects on people and the environment in order to harmonize the two worlds.

The Overturned Oceans Organization unites volunteers and youth from around the world to help replenish and connect the ocean. We carry out our organization with three keywords: Connect, Investigate, and Innovate.

To connect, asof June 2022, we hosted a Future of Our Oceans event which garnered an audience of 200 people from all around the world. 

To investigate, we’ve worked with organizations such as The Open Minds Projects, and the Ocean Conservation Research Organization to learn more about what organizations can do for the ocean.

To innovate, we are working with the fishermen community in South of Thailand to develop sustainable and cost effective fishing nets.

As time progresses, we look forward to expanding our areas of research into more specific ocean-related problems, volunteering at more beach clean ups, and especially working with aspiring engineers from around the world to help connect the ocean to our world.