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Achievement report July 2014


Report Title

The Creation of Considerate Divers

Objective

To improve diver skills and form good dive practice, encourage environmental awareness within
volunteers and to equip volunteers with the skills and tools necessary to conduct surveys, in order to
benefit local and global efforts in marine conservation.

Summary

In the last quarter GVI Seychelles trained a total of 42 volunteers and one national scholar to
become skilled and more considerate divers. Our dive officers certified one Open Water Diver, 29
Advanced Open Water Divers, 43 Coral Reef Research Divers and trained 29 in Emergency First
Response


Report

GVI Seychelles has a series of goals which we aim to achieve. These mirror global targets, such as
ensuring reef health and sustainability through environmental monitoring and education about key
global issues, as well as developing both local and international partnerships in order to collaborate
on different projects. All our lucky volunteers who chose to join us in paradise are trained with a
selection of courses, including PADI Open Water Diver - OW (in the case of our National Scholars),
PADI Advanced Open Water Diver - AOW, Emergency First Responder - EFR and Coral Reef Research


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Diver - CRRD. The purpose of these courses is to equip our volunteers not only with the skills
necessary to improve their diving, but also to turn them into underwater researchers and nurture a
passion for the work that we do. Our dive officers - Liv Moudy and Danny Shand, work tirelessly to
ensure that all the skills necessary for course completion are done to the highest standards and
accompanied with the amount of experience gained underwater, we like to think that the volunteers
who leave us are not only improved, but some of the best divers to leave any volunteer project!
Every 3 months, a position opens for a national scholarship scheme. We offer open water courses to
local nationals interested in joining the world of diving and underwater research, as well as our usual
science and dive training; taking someone who may never have dived before, and turning them into
a mean, keen, surveying machine! This quarter, our scholar Andrew has completed not only his OW
course, but also his AOW.
Volunteers who join us who are not already at the AOW stage are trained to this certification level.
Since April, Liv and Danny have certified 29 volunteers to AOW level.
The CRRD course is a GVI distinctive specialty, offered only by GVI Marine expedition programs. This
PADI certification counts as a specialty dive, and marks you as a diver familiar with different
underwater survey techniques used on reef systems. Since the beginning of May, 43 CRRD
certifications have been awarded (one to every volunteer!).
We also train our volunteers in EFR so everyone has basic first aid training. Not only useful in case of
emergencies, but great for improving employability. You can even get a fancy card!
As diving is such an amazing experience, some of our volunteers don't stop after our standard
training. If they are motivated to do so on their own or if they are part of the Divemaster Internship
Programme, they continue their education to become a PADI Rescue diver. Currently we have nine
Divemaster Interns DMIs, who will soon make their first steps in the professional diving world.


0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
OW EFR AOW CRRD DMI
Number of Volunteers Trained
Number in Training
Number Certified


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All in all, the training our volunteers receive, as well as the dive experience they gain helps to build
their environmental awareness and we like to believe that at least a part of our volunteers will make
a positive impact in future conservation work and/or the diving industry.


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