By: Mecca Verdiano Boor (Volunteer Panda Mobile)

The good collaboration between WWF-Indonesia's Panda Mobile and AIESEC President University is back. This 3rd year of collaboration raised the theme of "Life Below Water". This theme was raised because there are still many Indonesians who are not aware of the richness and diversity of marine life in Indonesia.

As in previous years, this activity was attended by several exchange participants totaling 21 people. They are students from Taiwan, Thailand, Italy, England, Spain, Canada, Portugal, Poland, Greece, Algeria, and Russia. In Indonesia, they will conduct a project that lasts for approximately one month. In the project, they will be assigned to educate the community around President University about the theme and share experiences about the water situation in their respective countries.

The series of activities began with training for foreign students on Wednesday (07/19) at President University, Cikarang, West Java. After introductions from the Panda Mobile team and the participants, Sheyka Nugrahani, Marine Species Program from WWF-Indonesia gave a presentation on Indonesian oceans. Through the presentation, the participants were also expected to be more aware of the things that happen in Indonesia's ocean, such as coral bleaching, overfishing and the main problem that threatens the sustainability of Indonesia's marine life, namely plastic waste. The exchange participants were very enthusiastic and asked a lot of questions from the facts presented by Sheyka.

Besides asking questions, they also gave their opinions on how to preserve the ocean. Tamina Freund, one of the participants from Austria expressed her idea, "Creating a campaign with the aim to raise the level of awareness of the public who can then support the government regarding legal regulations on waste management and overfishing."

Next, the participants received an explanation of Panda Mobile and the edutainment (education and entertainment) method used by Panda Mobile to deliver conservation messages. The Panda Mobile team also demonstrated and explained the water education lab to the participants in an easy-to-understand and non-boring manner. The participants were then invited to try the "Explore Papua" game, which aims to recognize endemic Papuan animals.

All these activities were done to introduce the various facilities in Panda Mobile because later the participants will also be involved as volunteers in Panda Mobile's activities to schools during the Goes to School activities. One of the students from Portugal named Helena Raquel Baptiste was very enthusiastic about doing activities with WWF-Indonesia's Panda Mobile. "I hope WWF can open opportunities for us if someday we want to become a volunteer outside this project and try to do something in nature conservation," she said.