Anyone who’s ever been diving in the crystal clear waters of Curaçao and welcomed by the friendly island’s unique blend of Caribbean and European culture at the surface has surely been enchanted by the Dutch Caribbean island. And it’s impossible not to feel a deep sense of community and pride in this beautiful place from the people who live here and represent more than 55 different nations.

Sandals Foundation is proud to partner with the premier Netherlands football club, AFC Ajax, to accompany Curaçao’s school children on a path of lifelong ocean awareness and conservation-mindedness. The partnership has created a program called Future Goals that is currently in its third year and a shining success. It works to empower local children while using the island’s favorite sport, soccer—or football, as it’s called in much of the world—as a tool to teach teamwork, resilience, confidence, and environmental stewardship. The program helps to raise awareness among the island’s youth about the importance of safeguarding Curaçao’s natural assets by repurposing ocean waste like plastic bottles and fishing nets into soccer goals for local schools.

The partnership has so far removed roughly 1.4 million plastic bottles and lids and over 300,000 square feet of fishing nets from Curaçao’s land and sea environments. The items are then recycled to create colorful soccer goals—hard plastics become the materials of the posts, while fishing nets get turned into the goal net.

Gift boxes, commensurate with the weight of trash gathered are delivered to participating schools. Brimming with sports equipment like frisbees, cones and jump ropes made from sustainably sourced materials, these gift box rewards further underline the importance of play and the love of the game and their island home among Curaçao’s youth.

This year's two-day cleanup, timed around World Oceans Day as an inspiring finish for the academic school year, saw 743 children from 21 schools participate in collection activities throughout the island, cumulatively removing some 25 pounds of litter.

Participating sixth-grade students took meaningful action by helping to beautify their communities while learning about environmental stewardship and proper waste disposal — all in support of a cleaner, greener Curaçao and Caribbean.

These small actions, when taken collectively, empower people to realize that any step forward and together is a step in the right direction—and there’s no better place to start than with the children who inherit this planet from us.

Sandals Foundation also marked World Oceans Month by adding new offerings at Sandals Resorts in Curaçao and the Bahamas to existing reef restoration programs in place across the Caribbean. Guests of Sandals Royal Curaçao and Sandals Royal Bahamian are able to take part in coral outplanting programs and coral restoration dives to add to the 37,000 coral fragments that have already been transplanted across Caribbean reefs as a combined effort with regional marine science partners.

Proceeds from the program go directly toward ongoing conservation efforts such as Curaçao’s new coral nursery. Developed with the BRANCH Coral Foundation and Sandals Royal Curaçao, it already sports 400 fragments of staghorn coral flourishing on five coral trees.

Guests experiencing Sandals Dive Week 2025, which is being held this September 14-20 at Sandals Royal Curaçao, will learn about all these efforts and more—all while enjoying the coral reefs and shipwrecks that make diving Curaçao’s waters such a treat.

For more information and to get involved, visit Sandals Foundation.