Category: Young conservation leaders

Small-scale fishers should be in the driving seat for blue carbon projects in the future. Here’s why.

Jemima Gomes joined Blue Ventures in 2016 as the Diving Assistant during Blue Ventures Expedition programme in Timor-Leste. Jemima recently participated in a Seagrass Ecosystem Services regional workshop in Indonesia. Here, she shares her personal experience of the Blue Carbon...

/ Oct 3, 2023

Voices of young community leaders

Speaking up for change in Antsahampano village through mangrove conservation. This is the final piece in a four-part series on the voices of young community leaders from Madagascar. Joséphine Besonoa, the community mangrove management association (VOI) technician, speaks on how...

/ Jul 27, 2022

Voices of young community leaders

Encouraging youth to care more for the environment This is the third piece in a four-part series featuring the voices of young community leaders from Madagascar. Fisherwoman Yolande Soamihaja describes her journey as she inspires fellow youth to take on...

/ Jul 20, 2022

Voices of young community leaders

Changemaking through the art of ‘kabary’ speechmaking in Madagascar This post is the second of a 4-part series featuring the voices of young community leaders from Madagascar. In this second part, Landry Jaofasy, a farmer, tells us how he gradually...

/ Jul 15, 2022

Voices of young community leaders

Marie Gorettie; my public commitment to the environment as a youth leader. This post is the first of a four-part series featuring young leaders in Madagascar who are using their voices to protect their communities and the marine environment. Josephine,...

/ Jul 13, 2022

When the students became the teachers: a new locally led ecological monitoring team in southwest Madagascar

In June, the local ecological monitoring team from Velondriake travelled to Manjaboake to pass on its skills to its first set of students It was an early sunny morning in June as we packed our kit into the boat on...

/ Aug 9, 2021
E-louise scaling fish outside her house

Realising our potential: scholars in profile – E-louise

E-louise was one of the first students to be supported by a Blue Ventures scholarship when they first began in 2007, and she’s now an intern within our education programme!

/ Mar 8, 2018

Elections bring new leaders and energy to governing Madagascar’s first locally managed marine area

Women and youth now make up a resounding 85% of Velondriake’s management structure! As turmoil returned to Malagasy high politics last month, the Velondriake Association – responsible for the governance of Madagascar’s flagship Locally Managed Marine Area (LMMA) – demonstrated...

/ May 4, 2016

Making my mother proud…

I feel like I’m gaining skills that will help me to accomplish my goals and hopefully continue to make my mother proud as well.

/ Mar 11, 2015

Through school I know that I’m capable of achieving much more…

I know that staying and finishing school will help me get somewhere where I’m fully satisfied. Doing something other than living day-to-day, doing small jobs, hauling cement or moving rocks. Through school I know that I’m capable of achieving much...

/ Feb 2, 2015

Girl power

My goal in completing school is to become a midwife. I see the need for women to have someone they can go to and trust with anything, especially young girls.

/ Jan 25, 2015

Dreaming of university

I don’t know of anyone else who had dreams of going to university as a kid. It isn’t something that many people from here do. No matter what happens, I have to keep trying, I have to find a way...

/ Jan 19, 2015

Education filled me up almost more than a bowl of rice…

Something magical happens. When I’m at school or studying in the youth clubs with Blue Ventures, it’s like learning is the medicine that cures my hunger.

/ Jan 12, 2015