New marine biology club for orphanage children |07 March 2011
This activity has been organised by the Global Vision International (GVI) volunteers.
The GVI is a private volunteer travel organisation that places groups and individuals on volunteer projects around the world.
The organisation’s charitable trust (Seychelles) has partnered with the President’s Village orphanage at Port Glaud.
It aims to raise funds to run the orphanage and provide an education and enrichment programme for the children.
This is a way for the volunteers to share their love of the ocean, for the kids to go on outings away from the children’s home and to have some one-on-one attention from young adults.
The club meets monthly for an afternoon of swimming, splashing and snorkelling on Port 
As the children arrived on the beach for one of their outings recently, they saw a display set up in the sand by the volunteers – turtle tracks from the water up the beach, life-size turtles sculpted in the sand, and a nest filled with pretend eggs and hatchlings.
After a brief lesson, the kids were helped into their snorkels and masks and ventured into the water for a guided tour of the shallow reef. The seagrass, sand, corals and fish looked amazing to the young snorkellers, who only surfaced periodically to clear water from their masks. After nearly two hours in the water, the youngsters were shivering but still did not want to get out.
Finally, back on the beach and in their towels, the kids snacked on homemade cookies in the shapes of sea creatures – while they looked through a coral reef field guide to fill in their marine biology club snorkel log books designed by the GVI volunteers.
They managed to identify many of the marine creatures they had seen and taught the Creole names to the volunteers. The children waved goodbye as they took their small cardboard turtles and logbooks home with them, looking forward to the next snorkelling adventure.
Besides spending time with the kids, the GVI raises money for the home through a charitable trust by hosting special fundraising events, which provide a chance for the Seychelles community to get involved in supporting the children of the President’s Village. They will be hosting a charity event at the end of March, details of which will be confirmed later.
For further information on GVI Seychelles and the charitable trust, contact them on: 378373 or capternay@gvi.co.uk
In Seychelles, the GVI has projects based on both Mahe and Curieuse islands. It is working with the Seychelles National Parks Authority on marine conservation activities and monitoring of the coral reefs.
The GVI volunteers have been working in Seychelles for the past five years and were invited by the parks authority to do research on the coral reefs and assess their recovery since the 1998 El Nino bleaching.
Volunteers from around the world living at Cap Ternay in Port Glaud are working with the GVI to help monitor the health and diversity of Seychelles’ majestic coral reefs and sealife.
Between survey dives, classes on marine biology topics and reporting collected data, volunteers spend free time enjoying life in Seychelles and building relations with the local communities.
Contributed by Global Vision International