Thursday, January 26, 2012

Wicked Diving - spreading the word about coral reef conservation




Below is a report on the recent visit to a school Wicked Diving sponsors. As part of our ethical operations, we not only pay the rent for the entire Outreach school, but is also part of the training for our divemaster trainees to participate in projects that help increase awareness within the local community. We feel very strongly that as future divers - they should learn how to affect more than just divers, they should be improving the community they will work in. It also helps the children in the school learn far more about the marine environment.


By Divemaster Trainees Lucy, Will, and Lukas.


The Divemaster intership at Wicked Diving includes to participate in a Community or Envyronmental Project, to comply with that, last Jan 26th we had the opportunity to visit the Youth Outreach Program (a local school for burmese children) to present a lecture on Coral Reefs.



We discussed what coral is, how it grows and where it is found. We explained why it is important to Thailand - with reference to biodiversity, tourism and fishing. Finally, we showed them what threatens the coral locally and what can be done to counter these threats, emphasizing what the children can do to help to preserve them.


With the aid of some presentations, 2 mini plays, traditional spoken instruction as well as videos, we manage to keep well the attention of the 20 or so children for 1:30 hrs! :)


F
inally, we challenge the children with a quizz to ascertain how much they had retained from our explanations - with a small prize for the team with the highest score. We were really pleased to see most of the children had learned a fair deal and, judging from their feedback, had enjoyed the session as much as we had.


Overall, a really rewarding afternoon as a Divemaster! ;)



Thank guys! Great job! When they joined our Divemaster program, who would have expected to be preparing powerpoints for Burmese school children :)





You can learn more about the the Ethical programs Wicked Diving participates in. We use 2% of all revenue generated to support these programs. When you dive with Wicked - you are helping improve our local communities.

Similan Diving

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