Posted: June 19, 2019
There are many different reasons for people to come and volunteer with GVI on the wonderful island of Curieuse, a well needed break from life at home, gap year travels, or as a part of your education to help get into a career in conservation.
The internship programme offered on Curieuse has provided me the perfect stepping stone to help me towards the career of my dreams.
The internship can vary from 6 weeks to 12 weeks, which as well as all the other benefits I will go into, also means spending a long period of time on Curieuse. There’s plenty of time to explore beautiful hidden beaches, witness a massive array of wildlife that you have likely never seen before, and also the opportunity to go further afield to different islands such as Praslin, Mahe, or even Bird Island.
Being an intern provides the opportunities to not only partake in all the surveys as everyone else does, but begin to play more of a leading role. Through a series of presentations you gain a leadership qualification, which then allows you to take out a group of volunteers on surveys, acting as the staff member for the group. Interns are given extra training to be able to get more involved in the collection of data, for example measurements on turtle encounters and also helping to work up juvenile lemon sharks when they are caught on shark surveys. For me, this has given me a lot more confidence in my own abilities, as I have already found myself teaching new volunteers things that I only learnt myself a month ago.
Being an intern also allows you to carry out your own research project, either a project that the staff or previous interns have worked on and need help with or further work doing on, or you can work with the staff to create a project from an interest of your own. Carrying out research and data collection of this nature has helped to develop many skills that are important to get into a career in science. At the end of the internship you then present your findings to the rest of the camp, which is a great way to improve confidence in interpersonal skills.
I really can’t recommend this internship and the overall experience of Curieuse enough. I have developed so much as a person in such a short amount of time, and have a whole new skill set to present to the world of conservation when I graduate from university next year.
Find out more at:
www.gvi.co.uk/programs/seychelles-sea-turtle-and-lemon-shark-research-conservation-short-term-internship
www.gvi.co.uk/programs/seychelles-environmental-conservation-short-term-internship/
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Petrina Darrah
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