Heyy!! My name is Audha. I’m from Naifaru and I work at Atoll Marine Centre as a Marine Biology Intern.I graduated high school in 2022 from Madhrasathul Ifthithaah. I love the ocean and I care about marine life, and I always love to learn new things. Working at Atoll Marine Centre helps to expand my knowledge and experience.
I joined Atoll Marine Centre last August. Honestly, in the last six months, I have had incredible experiences and learned a lot. Having little knowledge of these things before, I have learned a lot about turtles while working here. One of my highlights was assisting our previous Marine Biologist with The Atoll Ecologist marine lessons that we give to grade 9 marine science students at Madhrasathul Ifthithaah. While I was assisting, I have learned more things other than just about turtles. For example, more about mantas, whale sharks, environment etc. These sessions were also very helpful for me.
On a normal day, my morning responsibilities include ensuring that the centre is operating smoothly, training the international volunteers, and assisting the volunteers with food preparation, feeding and seagrass collection for the green sea turtles.
Every 3 days of the week, from Kanifushi resorts there will be guests visiting the centre. I have to give them a tour and a presentation. And I really enjoy doing it.
In the afternoons, I work at the office doing administrative tasks. My usual tasks are to enter weight and feeding data, assisting with writing the newsletter. Every day, we write the amount of food we give to turtles and comments on their behavior. And every other week, we weigh the turtles and measure them. Every month, for the people that adopt the turtles, we send them the monthly newsletter which includes centre updates, turtle updates and any other activities that happened in the center during the month.
My favorite part of my work is to share my knowledge to others. Sharing information to the locals who visit the center and giving presentations to the guests is something I truly enjoy doing.
After working here for 6 months, I have improved my communication skills and learnt a lot of facts about sea turtles. One of my favorite facts is that when female turtles go to the place they were born to lay their eggs; this is called natal homing.
I haven’t really planned anything to do in future yet but I really want to get more experience in this field and work with other things as well. I believe that this internship is very helpful for my future because it has allowed me to gain experience which will help me to get more education and will help me find future jobs in this field.