GVI, Ethical Impact: Volunteer in Seychelles

Staff members are very nice. It takes a bit of time to get used to the base and your daily schedule but once you get used to it you will have a wonderful time. You get introduced to a life of a marine biologist who has to take care of his/her diving equipment which includes filling up your tanks by yourself. The weekends off are a great opportunity to discover the rest of the main island (Mahé) but you can also discover other islands (I went to Praslin and La Digue with the other volunteers on base). Speaking of other volunteers, during these 4 weeks I got to meet some incredible people. Working together from Monday to Friday and then having a nice weekend really helps making friends.
To conclude, I definitely do not regret signing up for this experience and encourage everyone reading this to do it too!!

This program was full of once in a life time experiences, from swimming with turtles, sharks and whale sharks. The conservation work done by this program has had a meaningful and long lasting effect around the Seychelles protected area and is seeing a recovery. The Dive opportunities are some of the best in the world, and will stay with me for life. There is also plenty of socialising opportunities on the weekends when you can explore the surrounding islands and experience the unique local culture.

Volunteering with GVI this summer as a Marine and Coral Reef Conservation Research Intern was one of the best experiences of my life and made me realise how much I love fieldwork and marine conservation…so much so that I’m actually changing my major and am working towards setting up a conservation dive club in university which will aim to collect data and conduct PADI DAD dives!

I loved that not only was I in paradise, but I was also able to contribute to real-world research and aid conservation efforts in the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss. Not to mention, the dives were spectacular! The highlight for me would be seeing some whitetip reef sharks, a school of humphead wrasse, and swimming with dolphins.

Early wake up was around 6:30, followed by the morning chores, either cleaning the bathroom, preparing breakfast, or starting the compressor shift. Cooking for so many people and the loudness of the compressor was definitely something that took time to get used to. After breakfast, depending on the dive wave I was in, I would either kit up and go for the morning dives or do some more chores before the afternoon dives. Although I didn’t stay for a very long period (I wish I could have stayed longer), I still managed to do some surveys, which I really enjoyed. I especially enjoyed the Sharking surveys we did in the morning and evening. Even though there were no sharks in sight, we were able to spot some beautiful rays, and I loved the tranquillity of the water whilst wading through it in search of anything exciting.

In the evening, volunteers would hang out together or cook dinner together. I love cooking, so I would try to be involved whenever possible. I was surprised at how quickly I settled into a routine on base. I loved it - the complete immersion in nature and the sense of community and belonging I had whilst being there. I have made so many wonderful memories there.

I thank GVI for such a wonderful experience and look forward to staying involved as a GVI Ambassador!

I stayed on the base located at Cap Ternay, northern west of Mahe, for five weeks. I was actually supposed to stay four weeks, however I acknowledged, as I spent my time there, that I was not ready to leave this beautiful island, the precious work for conservation and friends I have made, hence I went for one week extention of my stay. The base is located in the middle of the forest with two beautiful beaches near, Bay Ternay and back beach in which we do beach cleanups around twice a week. I really loved the remoteness of the place as I came from a big, crowded and caotic city. We often go to the beach to watch sunsets on the rocks located on the rightside of the plage where once I cut my foot trying to climb one of the rocks covered with oysters. I am thankful for Rose who has trained all of us for first aid response, we managed to treat the wound properly. Similar injuries are inevitible there. After every weekend, when we returned back from Beau Vallon or other cities, something happened whether a scratch from a trekking or a foot sprain. Once, one of the volunteers ''accidentally'' got bitten by another volunteer while playing American football on the beach. So, you can imagine how the staff must be sick of our injuries, although they were really helpful with the incidents happenning currently. Let me talk about some not depressing things happening on the base other than the wounds. So, our daily routine basically is an early wake up at around 6.30 a.m., then we do the duties such as cleaning bathrooms, changing binbags, preparing dive equipments, compressor shifts...We are all responsible for the preparation of three meals. Aaand diveeess. We do two dives a day. We generally spend three or four hours on the boat. According to the tide, we may walk around two hundred meters on a very bumby, sandy road in the sea towards the boat, hence I love high tide when we do not suppose to walk with 20 kilos on your back. But either way, once you enter the water, you forget all about the struggle coming on the boat. Numerous, vividly colored reef fish, various types of nudibranchs, giant rays and so on. I have managed to see three, 2.5 meters long white tip sharks chilling under a rock. I have missed the whalesharks seen two weeks before I arrived to the base unfortunately. During the dives, I have done distinct works underwater including removing debris from the bottom, coral surveys, invertebrate, reef fish and nudibranch surveys. Everyday is an opprtunity to learn something new and the staff tryies really hard to make variations on the daily schedule. One day you go for a seagrass research in the bay, another day you find yourself snorkelling at dawn, searching for juvenile sharks. Withnessing the work I have done there is utilized for conservation purposes by local institutions makes me eager to do more, and learning from the people working there about their experiences of conservation in distinct countries gave me hope to plan my future oriented around conservation while travelling around the world. It was a once in a life time experience for sure. I am greatful for the opportunity to get to know both volunteers and staff members and to share precious moments and memories with them. I felt how much this experience contributed to my perspective of life and my personality as soon as I landed in Turkey. I will definitely continue participating in other programs with GVI.

Sadly a really really poor experience at GVI Seychelles, please don't be duped into spending your money here. Maybe I just got unlucky, but I am surprised to see so many good reviews considering the feeling of the volunteers whilst I was there.

From a research point of view- there was nothing to do, and far far too many volunteers to spread the little amount of work out between. There was very very little in terms of education or learning, not regular presentations and lectures as promised. None of the results of the limited data collected was shared with the volunteers. I left with the feeling that all I did for the environment was pollute the air with CO2 on my flight over. You basically just pay to hike around the (very lovely) surroundings and stand aimlessly around on beach for a bit.

The diet is extremely limited and poor (although it is hard for the staff to source good food in the Seychelles as it is limited). Any basic extras, or to even leave the island, you had to pay for yourself. The levels of hygiene in the kitchen was horrendous- there was a fridge that wouldn't even stay on so food would rot. There were rats running through the camp (and in people's beds) at night (although rats are a hard pest to control in an island environment). I did not go with expectations of any kind of luxury, but the standards were a joke (some volunteers had beds under a roof that leaked water onto your face every time it rained).

It was clear that there had been absolutely no investment in the base in a very long time; the fridge, cooker and kitchen area was abysmal, the solar panels were unable to provide any power past about 9pm, there was no fans to cool down the rooms. It is an absolute joke that GVI also tried to charge me £200 for 'cleaning expenses' on base (a plastic box with hand gel in- which we had to use as communal for the toilets).

I am left feeling ripped off, and with a sinking feeling in my stomach when I think about how much money I wasted on what was supposed to be a once in a lifetime trip. The volunteers pay thousands of pounds to be there, and I cannot see where the money goes because it is not going towards conservation, it is not going on investing in the base and it is not going towards staff salaries.

Overall, GVI is a for profit company, and the bottom line will always be profit. If you would like to do good in the world, get in touch with local organisations directly any bypass the middlemen such as GVI and don't fall for scams on the internet like I did.

It’s hard to begin with talking about what I enjoyed while on my program. For starters, I’ve done volunteer work before and I loved how I finally really had the feeling that I was making an impact and honestly doing something good instead of just being able to put something nice on my CV. Aside from that, all the help I received pre-departure made this all so easy. The only I issues I encountered while on base was with Covid but it’s a world wide pandemic and dealing with it is a double edged sword so I believe GVI did well. Also, the staff on base is amazing and the people I volunteers with are friends for life. I definitely recommend volunteering with GVI, this really was an experience of a life time

My time on Curieuse was an incredible experience I will never forget. From waking up for early morning sharking or watching the sunset on the beach in front of the base, every day there was something new to see. There is a lot more interaction with the animals than a lot of programmes and you really get involved with the surveys. The feeling I had the first time I saw a turtle come up on the the beach to lay her eggs was like nothing I’d felt before and I’d recommend this programme to anyone! There is also a great opportunity to explore some of the other islands at weekends and if you like diving then there is so much to see below the surface too!

Even if it's been two years now, I still remember very well my first day at the GVI camp on curieuse-island. For me, it felt like I was immersed in another world when the other volunteers and I were picked up from a beach on Praslin and we drove towards the nature-protected island with the camp boat "Dexter". The camp was located on one of the most beautiful beaches on the island. The camp, despite its simple design, looked very inviting and perhaps even a little enchanted. The impression of immersing yourself in a completely different world was reinforced by the idea that, together with the other camp residents, you were almost alone on the island. In the following six weeks, I experienced the time of my life, along with the consistently nice and great other volunteers. Every day we went on versatile excursions on the island with the amazing GVI-Stuff and got to know its flora and fauna. On this way, we learned to identify different sea turtles based on the traces in the sand, how to measure the unique "coco de mer"-palm or how to chip a young lemon shark. In the evenings we often sat together, ate cake or cookies and played cards. To tell the truth, there were also strenuous tasks, such as cleaning the camp or the boat, but most of the time you were just overwhelmed by the versatility of the island and the associated possibilities. In your free time, you could go snorkeling, climb up the island's mountain or just chill out with the camp-tortoise "Obama". Once I also had the possibility to play soccer with some of the residents on Praslin. On weekends, we were also able to make some trips to the other islands, whereby the Stuff could always give us very good tips for sights and accommodation.
My personal highlight was my weekend-trip to bird-island, which one of the stuff members had previously recommended to me. All in all, I have gained an infinite amount of experience over the six weeks, been able to get to know many different people of different cultures and nationalities, and I was able to contribute a small part to the environmental protection necessary to preserve the beautiful nature on the Seychelles. All this has enabled me the GVI program, so that today I'm very glad that I participated.