Supporting Local Comunities
The station aims to provide support and inspiration to local schools and community conservation efforts. We also look for opportunities to solicit donations to enhance science, maths and literacy.
We work to build mutually beneficial, long-lasting relationships with the community.
* We support local growers, buying fresh local, seasonal produce when available
* We always look to the local community first, when employment opportunities are available
* We regularly meet with community members and groups to stay up to date with the community's conservation and development initiatives and we look for appropriate ways to lend support where needed.
We work to build mutually beneficial, long-lasting relationships with the community.
* We support local growers, buying fresh local, seasonal produce when available
* We always look to the local community first, when employment opportunities are available
* We regularly meet with community members and groups to stay up to date with the community's conservation and development initiatives and we look for appropriate ways to lend support where needed.
If you would are coming to the Station as a volunteer and want to make a lasting impact in the community, please consider putting a few school supplies or Spanish language books in your backpack. By helping us to promote a love of learning, you'll make a priceless impact in the lives of our local children. Please click below to see what supplies are needed for our project.
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Education Initiatives - Working With The Community
After extensive consultation with the local school -Escuela Laguna del Tortuguero - parents and teachers, we designed a program for educational support. This program is ever-evolving, as we respond to the students' changing needs, changes in school personnel and in the materials and resources available. In 2013 we solicited our first full-time Education Interns. Our Interns are fluent in Spanish, and work one-to-one with struggling and disruptive students, as well as providing tutoring, after-school activities, football training and environmental education. In 2014 we initiated our Conservation Club, which provides a vehicle for us to provide students with hands-on experiences in the environment. Through an awards scheme, the club encourages students to participate in and develop their own local conservation initiatives. Why Is This Needed? The community of San Francisco de Tortuguero, is located just 20 minutes by boat, from the popular tourist destination of Tortuguero. Despite the money that tourism brings to the area, the village of San Francisco struggles economically, with many residents taking the lowest paying jobs available in the area. Work is often seasonal and unreliable, and some families supplement their incomes, with poaching of local animals, including the endangered marine turtles that lure the tourists here in the first place. For some long-term community members, hunting of marine turtles has been their source of income for their entire adult lives, with changing laws turning them from "hunters" to "poachers". Many of these poachers, have limited options for changing their source of income, as they don't have the level of education, or English language skills required to get decently paid jobs. With over to 100 students in 2016, grades 1-6 are taught by just three teachers. One of these teachers is also the acting principal, so the already short classes (just 3 hours a day), are often cancelled because of teacher absences for meetings and administrative demands. What does this have to do with a biological station? For any conservation effort to find success, it has to involve the community. Local people who live off of the protected natural resources, have to have attractive alternatives for supporting their families. By working with the school to improve the educational outcomes of its students, we provide the students with choices. By providing the facts about conservation issues in our environmental education and Conservation Club, we provide students with the tools to make environmentally sound choices. In 2016, our conservation club will be joining biologists to work on the local and global issue of marine debris. Students will help with accumulation assessments as well as beach cleans, and discussions with local government on how to reduce our impact |
Special Projects
Visitors to the station sometimes have the opportunity to get involved with special community projects. These are usually school related projects and are work that needs a lot of manpower. These opportunities are difficult to plan well ahead of time, as it can be hard to predict when the community will have the resources or necessary permissions to get a project off the ground.
When we are considering involvement in community projects there are two criteria which must be met:
1) It must not be a job that a local/locals would otherwise be paid for
2) The project idea must be initiated by the community
When we are considering involvement in community projects there are two criteria which must be met:
1) It must not be a job that a local/locals would otherwise be paid for
2) The project idea must be initiated by the community