Sea Education Aotea Charitable Trust

The Sea Education Aotea Charitable Trust exists to teach our tamariki on Aotea | Great Barrier Island how to be safe on, in and near the water since it started in 2004. Since the impact of covid, we also focus on the emotional and physical wellbeing of our tamariki, adult and youth volunteers by using our water-based activities to build G.R.I.T! Guts. Resilience. Initiative. Tenacity!

Your donation will help with the continuation and expansion of this programme!

Over the summer terms, the SEA Trust teaches water skills via context learning through sailing, kayaking and swimming. This is offered to all three primary schools on the island, and in 2023 we are planning to expand this further to our pre-schoolers (Aotea Playcentre) and to our high school students ((Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (The Correspondence School)) plus we will include snorkeling and citizen science as an option. The expansion being funding dependent.

During the winter months we aim to teach marine and maritime education. We are wanting to expand this winter programme, called the 7 Seas, to not only include all three schools each week but to have a significant action component with the possibility of applying some form of a marine protected area to help with environmental issues such as, marine sediment dumping, rubbish accumulation on our beaches and marine invasive species taking over our precious marine waters.

By being able to offer these learning opportunities to our tamariki, youth and adult volunteers, it also gives them the opportunity to socialise with each other which is significantly important in a rurally isolated community.

We look forward to

- keeping our drowning rate on Aotea | Great Barrier Island at ZERO,

- to continue to have tamariki who are connected to their environment thereby becoming kaitiaki,

- to continue to have community members in our rurally isolated community who are socially balanced and resilient.