Volunteer work in Fiji: Diving in Fiji

Diving in Fiji: Volunteer Work in Fiji

Diving in Fiji: Volunteer Work in Fiji

You will spend the first two weeks diving in Fiji, improving your diving skills through a scuba diving course, which includes 30 underwater dives. After you have completed the PADI diving course, you will begin your volunteer work in Fiji.

As a volunteer on the island of Savusavu in Fiji, you will assist the University of the South Pacific with a long-term ocean conservation research project concerning the construction of a “Marine Protection Area”. You will use the new scuba skills you learned during the first two weeks of diving in Fiji during your volunteer work. Among other tasks, your volunteer work in Fiji will include:

• Recording fish populations
• Helping to remove the crown-of-thorns starfish, which poses a major threat to the coral reefs around Fiji

As you continue diving in Fiji, you will help to survey the ocean conservation areas and will study the condition of the reefs. Aside from this, you will regularly go diving in Fiji in order to clean the ocean floor around the yacht ports and shipyards in Savusavu, and will remove fishing lines, which get twisted around the local reefs.

Depending on the time of year you choose to do volunteer work in Fiji, you may have the option to teach English at a local school or preschool. The children here live very insular lives, and know only very little about the rest of the world. You will explain the importance of recycling, composting, and re-use to the school children. Aside from teaching and diving, your volunteer work in Fiji could include helping communities clean up their surroundings, especially the beaches. You may also help with maintainance and repair work, and offer support in local development projects.

Fiji Time - Everything is a Bit More Relaxed Here

Please note that this programme is loosely structured, depending on the current local conditions and on "Fiji Time". Therefore, the days in the following programme schedule could change considerably.

Diving in Fiji: Programme Itinerary

• Days 1-4: Arrival: (Nadi and Savusavu)

You will be picked up at the airport in Nadi (pronounced “Nandi”) and taken to your hotel. After the orientation you will have free time to explore the island. Later, you will take a night ferry to Savusavu.

• Days 5-36: Diving and Volunteer Work in Fiji (Savusavu)

At the beginning of your programme in Fiji, you will stay with a local Fijian family for one week. Your living conditions will be very basic, but you will learn so much about the local culture by experiencing it first-hand! The local people are very friendly and will happily integrate you into their way of life. Whether you are visiting a local school, dancing at a traditional Fijian wedding, helping your host mother to prepare local food, touring a lively market full of foreign scents and sights, playing volleyball with locals, or taking part in a nightly kava ceremony, there is something new to discover every single day!

During these days, you will begin your diving course for your PADI certificate. You will also be introduced to the ocean protection projects as well as to the other projects, and you will receive training in coral reel inspection and data-collection. Then you will begin your volunteer work in Fiji in the ocean protection area!

• Days 37-42: Departure (Suva, Coral Coast, and Nadi)

During Week 6, you will slowly begin your departure from Fiji. Taking the night ferry from Savusavu to Suva, you will spend one day at the lovely Coral Coast before completing your time in Fiji where you began, in Nadi.