The Scuba Diving Community Center Ambassadors of the Sea, is an non-profit organization that offers free diving classes to the South Caribbean youth with the purpose of teaching them about the importance of protecting the ocean from an environmental and historical point of view.

The project began in 2014 with the intention of offering a work opportunity to the young men and women from the area, particularly from Puerto Viejo and Cahuita, while at the same time, promoting tourism, recreation, the protection of the ocean and also rescuing the history through underwater archaeology.

“We teach kids, teens and adults of the communities of Cahuita, Puerto Viejo and Manzanillo about traditional diving in different levels, and we also train them on archaeological diving, this because we have several sunken ships in our coasts that date from many years back, some of which, it’s said, brought slaves aboard; this is a way of recovering part of the events that have not been told, but that we can reconstruct by recovering objects or items that we can find in the ocean”, explained Marianita Harvey, coordinator of the project El mar y sus beneficios (The ocean and its benefits).

Lessons can be with a recreational or sporting objective which consists in dominating different abilities and security concepts. There are three levels, supervised, autonomous and leader, when the three are completed the participant receives a professional certification (PADI).

The second level has to do with the archeology diving lessons, part of the project Ambassadors of the Sea, in which students learn to identify vessels, bottles, articles of importance and developing the ability to map the archeological sites to link them with the specific sector.

Students from the East Carolina University (ECU) in the United States, take part in the training of the students, they impart workshops and contribute with the recovery and analysis of objects found in the Caribbean coasts.

María Suarez, coordinator of the archeological diving project, explained that those young men and woman who wish to receive classes need to be have good grades in high school.

“We have found a 6 meter high anchor, 16 cannons and hundreds of bricks that need to be studied to find out where they come from”, explained María Suarez.

Those that have already graduated from the project then help teach the younger children 3 to 12 years of age.