Mission
 Seventeen volunteers from the EMEA Circle of Excellence (CoE) recognition trip to the Seychelles opted to dedicate a day of their award to support the local community on Cousin Island, reports Ben Atherton, EMEA CoE Global Events Manager and outreach participant who provided this story, pictures and video to Nortel LearniT.
The trip itself from the luxury island of Sainte Anne to the ultra-remote Cousin Island site was an adventure in itself beginning with a 5:00 a.m. wake up call and a breakfast briefing before boarding buggies, boats, coaches, dinghies and yet more boats.
 View part of the very adventurous beach landing (at left and in the very EXCITING in-transit video and beach landing scenes!). The jointly designed project focusing on a sustainable, positive impact to the environment aptly took place just before worldwide Earth Day.
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Nortel LearniT 21st e-Learning Initiative
 The Seychelles project melds Nortel LearniT's education through technology with ecology goals in a partnership with Nature Seychelles. Nature Seychelles help run after-school wildlife clubs across the main islands (Mahe, La Digue, Praslin, Silhouette) to educate kids abfout the local wildlife and flora and fauna. The focus includes communicating the delicate balance between encouraging tourism and protecting the very eco-system that makes the islands such a desirable place to visit. Nortel LearniT volunteers pitched in with the wardens on Cousin Island to clean alien vegetation from the beach and shoreline.
Additionally the project funded 34 kids from the neighboring island Wildlife Clubs to join the team and produce a 'digital diary' of the project using camera equipment donated by Nortel.Ben Atherton, Global Events manager, stated "we were acutely aware that during our brief visit to Seychelles we had the opportunity to be more than just tourists. The project we planned was a lot of fun for the volunteers, the key ingredient was was relevant to the islands and successfully mix education and technology with a focus on greener issues too." Learn more about the project "by the numbers"!
Converging paths for volunteers and young digital explorers
 After the thrilling beach landing and brief introduction from the Cousin Island wardens the Nortel LearniT team got down to work in 35°C (95°F) temperatures. They spread out through the undergrowth (avoiding the giant tortoises) and began remove the alien plant life that daily threatens to overwhelm the natural fauna of the island, home to so many rare and endangered indigenous and migratory birds and also a prime nesting site for the Hawksbill turtle. 
The kids meanwhile split into groups to assist the Nortel team and a special camera unit was formed to record the activities. And record they did! Over 500 photos and some short videos were taken, including those shown here. The solar-driven generator in the wardens' hut was soon put to good use recharging the camera batteries. At the end of the day the children put together a slideshow of the best images running it through the 40 GB hard drive photo viewer which was another piece of the multimedia kit donated.
 And the volunteers loaded back into the boats....... and sailed off into the sunset!
Next steps
Nortel is now teaming with the local Cable & Wireless community project officer to source lower cost internet access at the Wildlife Club bases. The joint effort will also provide a powerful PC loaded with the latest multimedia kit so that Nature Seychelles can continue the education project and make ongoing use of the camera skills learned. Through www.nortellearnit.org they'll have access to hundreds of education modules designed to be adapted and run as workshops for years to come.
The wildlife clubs intend to use their photos in the next online and print version of their newsletter 'Zwazo'. Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation attended the day and interviewed various volunteers to produce a special 30 minute documentary on the project, further enhancing the educational aspect of this event and promoting the excellent work of Nature Seychelles.
Participants comments
Executive sponsor Richard Lowe, president Carrier Networks, said "the camera equipment donation was a means to an end, we hope the real legacy of this day is the access to the educational resources we provided and the fire in the belly we ignited in those kids to appreciate their natural resources and respect their environment. We were proud to be involved in such a project." Lyndy Corgat, education coordinator, Nature Seychelles, proffered a "big THANK YOU to Norel and all the other staff and participants organising the volunteer networking activity on Cousin Island Special Reserve. We felt very honooured to do this activity with you and I am sure the kids were very proud of themselves for getting this unique opportunity. We look forward to the follow up work with you through the development of some of the Nortel LearniT modules for the clubs, so they can keep up with the project and the networking."
Volunteer Soeren Michaelsen, Carrier sales, based in Copenhagen, Denmark said, "My wife Helle and I thought the community project was a fantastic experience. It was great to work with the local kids on this really important environmental project. It was hard work to clean the forest and seeing the giant 100+ years old land tortoises was just an extra bonus (See Soeren above with giant tortoise). The community project was indeed the highlight of the CoE trip!" |
