Turtle heroes: Protecting Sea Turtles in Suriname

While we always try to go to Galibi for summer vacation activities, this is the first time since 2019 that we were able to do something with the children from this community this early in the year. This time our team was joined by one volunteer and 2 interns. These two interns were responsible for coming up with new exciting activities to entertain the children whilst educating them about the importance of their home, Galibi, for other animals such as sea turtles and migratory birds. This was new for us as our team usually comes up with all the activities, however, these interns were here to learn about the importance of environmental education. What better way to learn than to actually do it? This was an interesting but encouraging experience because we not only got the opportunity to teach the youth of Galibi about their environment, but we were also able to help guide two young professionals with their education and hopefully inspired them to continue on this path! 

As usual, we started the weekend with a movie night for the children. This time, the movie night was held indoors due to some problems with electricity. The movie, Strange World, was a hit and the children watched attentively and laughed a lot! Spoiler alert, the end of the movie revealed that the world is situated on the back of a sea turtle. This happens to be a popular indigenous story! The next day the children played games such as a sea turtle version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, created their sea turtle shell and played migratory birds musical chairs. Through all these activities they learned about the anatomy of sea turtles, how it is similar to and different from other reptiles and the different sea turtle shells, as well as the importance of migratory birds and the threats to their habitats. As always it was a great weekend and we look forward to going back in September for world cleanup day and clean up the world weekend.