PROFESSIONAL ADVANCEMENT THROUGH VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES                                                                                

For students of aquaculture, gaining practical experience, especially in international work, is difficult.  One option is to volunteer with organizations who place knowledgeable individuals who are willing to share their time, labor and even limited experience with farmers in the field.   Students with a good technical understanding of aquaculture theory and practices may be very useful to explain these to poorly educated farmers so that they can better understand the fundamentals of what they practice on a daily basis.  

Aquaculture without Frontiers is probably the best known volunteer group for aquaculture.  AWF has placed almost one hundred volunteers on aquaculture farms around the world, assisting primarily small-scale family farms to be more efficient.  However, there are several other volunteer organizations who also are anxious to assist aquaculture practitioners in developing countries.   The Winrock Foundation, VEGA International, and Partners of the Americas administer the USAID supported Farmer to Farmer program.  This program places US based volunteers with small farmers (including aquafarmers) in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, respectively.   OXFAM has recently begun promoting fish farming more actively with donors able to support even one family at a time to start a fish farm.  World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, Relief International, Save the Children each have supported small aquaculture projects in the past relying on volunteers as they do not have aquaculture experts on their staff.     Volunteers are sorely needed to assist family farmers to develop their operations.  The Monterey Bay Aquarium supports the Seafood Watch Program which evaluates fish farms.  More experienced volunteers have been sent to evaluate fish farms in the field.  Volunteers have also been recruited to help write and edit industry results for small sectors

For international students, their national aid agencies should be contacted for potential volunteer opportunities as most of them have programs (JICA, KOIKA, AusAID, DANIDA, GIZ, DIFID, CIDA-IRDC, AFD, IrishAID, MASHAV, NORAD, NZAid, SIDA, etc.) to support small-scale farmers including aquafarmers.    Finally, most religious organizations place volunteers in the field to support small farmers.  This is often at the individual congregation level and at other times on a higher level within the religious organization, pooling resources from many congregations.