Shell Out!

Sea Turtles are known as a “keystone species”, which means that they are a very important part of the marine ecosystem. If sea turtles were removed from their habitat by going extinct, the whole marine environment will be disrupted resulting in world-wide impacts. Therefore, in an attempt to support marine turtle conservation, Project “Shell Out” was initiated as a joint initiative of the Rotaract Club of the University of Colombo, Faculty of Arts and Rotaract Club of Jadavpur Greens in RID 3291. Rtr. Buddhimali Parindya and Rtr. Kavindi Gunawardana were the co-chairs of the project. The main objective of our project was to contribute to sea turtle conservation by providing volunteer services for the Galbokka Sea Turtle Conversation and Research Center with the aim of achieving one of our Sustainable Goals, Goal No 14 – Life Below Water.

We had a period of two weeks to plan our project and once we had decided the date, time, and venue, we started reaching out for corporate sponsorships to manage the project budget in which we had to deal with some hardships in getting companies to sponsor our project. Despite these obstacles, we kept on looking for alternative ways to approach this issue and decided to ask for donations as well. Many of our colleagues helped us generously by making donations which were vital for the successful completion of our project.

Through the donations and our volunteer services, we could make a meaningful impact in assisting the conservation of critically endangered sea turtles. We were able to complete the project on time within our allocated budget, despite many challenges that cropped up during the process. We were fortunate enough to get hands-on experience working with these fascinating marine creatures and it was truly an eye -opening, once in a lifetime opportunity from which we learned a great deal about the importance and the necessity of volunteering in sea turtle conservation. The success of our project would not have been possible without the support and assistance of many individuals. We would like to extend our profound gratitude to each and every one of them for their invaluable contributions to our project.

– Rtr. Buddhimali Parindya