Challenging times call for conscious leadership. We know we have amazing leaders in our global community. Some are 100% AWARE partners or Dive Against Debris® activists, others are Adopt a Dive Site™ ambassadors or fundraisers leading a team. For as long as we can, the Project AWARE team will remain available to support you and provide you with ways to continue to engage and stay connected with the ocean community via online opportunities to learn and take action during the coronavirus pandemic.

Fundraisers

We take the health and safety of our volunteers, supporters, fundraisers, partners, collaborators and staff very seriously. We encourage our global community to rise up and continue to take action for a clean and healthy ocean but to do so safely and responsibly. For our #TeamOcean runners, based on available information at the time of publishing this blog post, the Chicago Marathon organizers are continuing the preparations for the event.

• Please check the Chicago Marathon COVID-19 Update page for the latest information and follow your Government COVID-19 measures. We all want to help protect the ocean but remember, the health and wellbeing of yourself and those around you are paramount.
• Check out our Fundraising Toolkit for fundraising tips and ideas that can be conducted online or in the safety of your home.

Ocean Community

Earth Day, April 22 is right around the corner. It will be a very different Earth Day! We encourage our global community to rise up but to do so safely and responsibly. Let's use the power of our collective voices to drive action online rather than in person. As a global movement with a mission to connect the passion for ocean adventure with the purpose of marine conservation, nothing can stop us from finding new ways to create positive change for our blue planet. Keep sharing ocean optimism online.

• Follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram
• Follow the Hashtags #ProjectAWARE and #AWAREcommunity
• Check out our Action Map to sign up to ocean-focused online events
• Stay connected - Sign up to our e-newsletter for the latest Ocean News and Updates
• Donate to keep supporting our mission

Dive Against Debris® Volunteers

Our global army of Dive Against Debris activists will be craving diving with a purpose. We urge you to be safe for you and others in your community.

• If you have any outstanding Dive Against Debris surveys that you would like to submit, please feel free to do so, but please be patient with us since our manual Data Quality review process may take a little longer than usual.
• For underwater cleanup mesh bags and clean ocean kit orders, unfortunately, we had to make the difficult decision to close our online shop since working from home doesn’t allow us to process and ship orders. Please consider making an online donation instead to support our work and online engagement actions for the community.
• Check out our Action Map for online events conducted by our global My Ocean Community.

Adopt a Dive Site™ Ambassadors

To support Adopt a Dive Site participants, we provide a full suite of survey tools to help implement your actions, a yearly report on the state of your local dive site and recognition tools for dive centers, resorts, and leaders to share your stewardship with local customers and community. If you are unable to submit Dive Against Debris data from your adopted dive site during the COVID-19 crisis, don’t worry.

• Reach out to a member of our Community Team and email us via the Contact Us form.
• Keep sharing your outstanding commitment to a clean ocean using the Adopt a Dive Site tools we provided you with.

Dive Leaders

The Dive Against Debris Survey Toolkit and Dive Against Debris Specialty Course Toolkit are available to download in 13 languages for free and many Dive Leaders are using them to conduct webinars and provide online training even in situations when training dives can’t be completed. If you’re organizing an online course, dry specialty courses such as the Project AWARE Specialty and Coral Reef Conservation Specialty courses are well-suited to live and recorded webinar format.

• Download Project AWARE Tools and Resources from the Conservation Tools
• Create a My Ocean account to add your online events to the Action Map
• Check out our NEW Project AWARE Online Teaching Hub
• Check out these PADI Tips for Instructor-Led Online Learning
• Encourage your webinar attendees to make a donation to Project AWARE so we can keep developing online resources for our global community

100% AWARE Partners

Our Community team will soon reach out to you for support and opportunities to keep your 100% AWARE partner status. For now, we invite all our 100% AWARE Partners to use the 100% AWARE Facebook group to support each other and share ocean resources.

Our passion for the ocean and strong will to protect it doesn’t end in times of uncertainty. One of our strengths as a community of dive and ocean leaders is that we have the tools and commitment to inspire and drive change in times of both hope and despair.

Keep hoping and working with us towards a future where the ocean no longer needs protecting. Keep connecting the passion for ocean protection with the purpose of marine conservation. Keep well. Stay home. Stay awesome!

Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash