Anyone that has dive with Wicked Diving this year will have probably had the good fortune to meet Gafur and Fauji, our dive guides from Komodo island. They have both been part of the Wicked family for around eighteen months, joining us as part of an internship programme.
They showed such promise and dedication during their internship that we offered them the opportunity to train with Wicked to become fully certified Dive Guides. During November and December of last year Gafur and Fauji trained full time to reach their goal. It wasn’t always easy,but their engaging personalties and constant smiles made it one of the most fun courses our Instructors have ever taught. Not only have they learnt how to be dive professionals, but they have shown a real dedication to protecting the Komodo National Park, whether it be through cleaning up the beaches or collecting data for manta ray research. All of this while learning English at the same time!
Since March, they have been working full-time as Dive Guides, with constant support and mentoring from our team. They have gone from strength to strength and the whole team is incredibly proud to watch them progress and to have been part of this life changing experience with them. Last week, we got the whole team together to celebrate them finishing their probationary period and receiving their certification as SSI Dive Guides.
Check out the gallery below to see their journey in pictures. Huge well done to Gafur and Fauji. Next stop – Dive Instructor course!
To read more about Gafur and Fauji’s internship, have a look at the link below from Wild Asia who named called out this programme as one of Top 10 Inspiring Stories 2013.
http://tourism.wildasia.org/2567/training-dive-guides-komodo/
We’d also like to say a special thanks to SSI Indonesia for donating the teaching materials in Indonesian.
