Photo credit: Intrinity Divers
PADI® Members around the world continue to take action for the ocean, their businesses, the dive industry, and their local communities – hope is certainly rising.
From creating sponsorships to help local children become certified divers to enlisting young divers to write conservation specialty courses, these inspiring #PADIPeople and PADI Dive Centers are preparing the next generation of PADI Torchbearers to protect and save the ocean to create balance between humanity and the ocean.
Seeding Next-Generation Sustainability: Dive Butler Maldives
Dive Butler Maldives is working with one of the newest hotels in the Fari Islands, Patina Maldives, to inspire local youth to protect and save the ocean. Both travelers and locals can use the 100% solar-powered dive center at the hotel, which will play host to a range of conservation initiatives designed to nurture the local ecosystem and empower the youth that live there. Together, Dive Butler Maldives and Patina Maldives will offer free PADI dive certifications to local Maldivian children to nurture future Torchbearers in the area.
Empowering Indigenous Children Through Diving: Dive Rarotonga
Last year, Dive Rarotonga teamed up with Korero O Te Orau (KOTO) – an NGO focused on providing life skills to the indigenous youth in Rarotonga – to provide a PADI scholarship program that empowers the country’s next generation through diving. The program combines teaching diving skills with a greater knowledge of the marine ecosystem and the significance it has for the island nation’s culture and history. So far, the program has certified 68 students across a range of PADI courses, with the intention of enrolling them in the PADI Divemaster course when they become adults so they can one day teach future generations how to save the ocean, too.
Creating a Movement of Torchbearers: Mares Ecuador
In her effort to clean the seabed in Machalilla National Park, Cristina Izurieta, co-owner of Mares Ecuador, started her own conservation movement, #DoMingasDeMares, as a way to encourage local children in Puerto Lopez to become environmental volunteers. The children who volunteer get the opportunity to visit the Marine Fauna Rehabilitation Center to see firsthand how ocean debris negatively impacts animals. When they are old enough, they also get the opportunity to become certified PADI Open Water Divers and volunteer in the Coral Reef Restoration Project with Mares Ecuador. So far, Christina’s movement has trained over 100 students with the goal of certifying 500 more by 2023. All of her students are committed activists taking care of the beach and the new coral reefs they have helped protect.
Students Making a Mark on Specialty Courses: Welsh Diving
Welsh Diving recognizes the next generation will lead the way in protecting and saving the ocean. That is why they enlisted the help of the youth divers at their center to write the environment and ecosystem content of their own Underwater Wales Distinctive Specialty course, and have given them credit on the manual. Welsh Diving also organizes youth group trainings along the coastline of Wales to ensure the next generation of Torchbearers have all the diving skills they need to lead the way.
Photo credit: Dive Zone Tauranga
Partnering with Local Schools: Dive Zone Whitianga + Tauranga
Both Dive Zone Whitianga and Dive Zone Tauranga work with local schools to teach future Torchbearers how to dive. Dive Zone Whitianga runs extensive school programs that result in around 50 Junior Open Water Diver certifications per year. Adding to this impressive statistic is Dive Zone Tauranga, who go the extra mile to ensure remote school children in the area can still participate in their Seal Team program. Together, both Dive Zones are preparing the next generation of Torchbearers to protect and save the ocean.
Training Scouts to be Divers: Malibu Divers
For the last 20 years, Malibu Divers have teamed up with Scout BSA (formerly known as Boy Scouts of America) to train the next generation of leaders as certified PADI Divers. Offering over 20 different programs, Scouts can earn both their PADI Open Water Diver certification and SCUBA Merit badges, with unique courses available such as the BSA Kelp Diver, BSA Abalone Diver and BSA Pirate Diver Specialty –in which Scouts can search for pirate gold and a sunken treasure chests. This unique partnership is making a huge impact on certifying the next generation of Torchbearers.
Share Your Hope Rising Stories with #PADIPeople
There is hope rising everywhere. PADI will continue to amplify stories like these with fellow PADI Members and divers to inspire, excite and accelerate recovery by demonstrating the spirit of #PADIPeople around the world.
Share your own stories about how you are making a difference, and the better days that are possible right now through diving. Simply post descriptions, photos or videos to your social media channels, tagging PADI and #PADIPeople.
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