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amanda
NEWF STORY
“The world consumes so much of Africa’s wildlife and natural history yet African people of colour visual storytellers in nature, wildlife and conservation science are rarer than most of the endangered species on the continent of Africa. There is critical need to for Africa to expose the world to the wealth of her stories, wonders and natural history told through perspectives of her people”.
In 2019 we started what we call NEWF Dive Labs Partnered with Nature Environment Wildlife Filmmakers -NEWF, aimed at providing access and opportunity for African people of colour science and conservation storytellers to attain internationally accredited dive qualifications -RAID Dive Masters. We are excited by the impact it has had as well as the potential it displays as an accelerator tool for the development of critical scarce skills for African storytellers. Building on the success of the introductory and intermediate LABs 1 and 2 who we proudly nicknamed “NEWFRAIDERS” and as part of our contribution towards the United Nations declaration of the Decade of Ocean Science, we have launched a professional Dive Lab, the NEWF Decade Divemaster Storytelling LAB initiative, ambitiously designed to boost the careers and qualify 100 African ocean science and conservation scientists and storytellers as Dive Masters over the next 10 years. The partnership is the most fitting based on the RAID way with emphasis on Buoyancy being the Fundamental diving skill any Scuba Diver should base all their training on as well as the least “fin print” in all dive agencies worldwide. During this process they received mentorship and training in storytelling, filmmaking and underwater photography and cinematography, from industry leading mentors whilst not only learning to swim for some but also learning to Scuba Dive. DDSL2021 consisted a powerful all women cohort who during their 3-month fellowship developed a concept for an underwater natural history film whilst being trained towards their divemaster certification.
This LAB was hugely successful for all as an entity, but far more rewarding was witnessing the personal growth of each individual as they honed in on their own personal strengths as well as weaknesses and grew each day to become excellent divers. Their passion for the conservation of the ocean and its value was transparent in all their efforts to succeed at becoming the best of themselves.
We are very proud to have these stupendous humans on the RAID team of Dive Masters!
Water babies, Ocean Warriors, Mermaids just doing what they do best!
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