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Sponsorships for students from Banda
We offer local students from the Banda Islands the opportunity to gain in-depth hands-on training in marine biology. This runs parallel to their studies and aims to enable students from small islands in eastern Indonesia to get into science.
Since there is a discrepancy between East and West Indonesia in terms of higher education, this is a very important step towards equal opportunities for students from different provinces. Every year, motivated students are selected from Banda, who are first allowed to learn to dive, then learn various methods of marine biology work and then carry out their bachelor thesis under the supervision of our local partner Luminocean. In addition to carrying out work in the field of marine conservation or marine ecology, the focus here is on preparing for an academic career. Students usually come into contact for the first time with searching for and reading scientific publications, designing and conducting an experiment, recording data in a planned and structured manner, evaluating them statistically, writing a scientific text and preparing and giving a presentation. All this enables graduates from the Banda Islands to become competitive in the Indonesian academic world. Another motivation to run this project is the conviction that only well-trained local leaders who are passionate about marine conservation can bring about long-term change for their homeland and the coral reef as a basis for life.
We would like to expand this program and are looking for sponsors who will support individual students.
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Funding details
The funding runs for two years and begins during the fifth of eight semesters of the bachelor's program in fisheries management. In the first year, grantees learn to dive, gain diving experience, and learn how to conduct surveys on coral reefs. This gives them their first detailed insight into the complexity of the coral reef ecosystem. Regular diving should ensure that fascination and passion for the coral reef habitat are awakened. They also take part in regular garbage collection dives to raise awareness for the problem of plastic waste in the sea.
In the second year, the program dives deeper into academic content. This year, the students decide which topic is the research topic of their bachelor thesis. We support them in finding a topic that fascinates them and teach the basics of how to plan, conduct, evaluate and communicate a scientific study. We also provide a fixed budget for research materials and pay for boat trips and diving tank filling. The Bluemotion dive school makes these available to us at a cost-covering price. If the work is well done and the results are interesting, we encourage the students to write a scientific publication and write it together with them. All scientific aspects are taught by Mareike (Dr. in Marine Sciences) on a voluntary basis. However, the aim is to have one or two program alumni continue the program in the long term. This would also create employment for highly qualified young people on the Banda Islands.
Financing
A sponsorship costs €700 per year and should be taken over for 2 years . The following costs are borne by this:
year 1)
Open Water Diver course
Advance Adventurer diving course
20 additional dives to gain experience and collect rubbish underwater
Ecodiver (coral reef monitoring) course
Lunch during the training days
"Plastic-free" kit consisting of a stainless steel bottle, Tupperware lunch box, t-shirt and net for underwater garbage collection
year 2)
40 project and research dives
40 lunches during the diving and training days
Boat costs for research trips
research materials
During the two-year training, the sponsors receive regular reports and photos of the students' activities. We also encourage direct exchange via email, chat or online phone calls. A visit to the Banda Islands and a personal meeting is of course also very welcome.