AECID and IAG-supported WBA organizes Dive Center and opens opportunity for women

Maluso, Basilan (July 12, 2022) - CMAS-certified divers from within the Western Basilan Alliance convene today in this town for a training package that aims to build their capacity to operate and sustain the WBA Dive Center.

According to Noor Saada, MILAB Project manager, the WBA Dive Center is envisioned as a social enterprise for the alliance while sustaining the competence of their CMAS-certified divers and promoting sustainable tourism within the alliance through a wide range of exciting and waiting-to-be-explored dive sites.

Sarah Miguel Tahajid, one of the CMAS-certified divers assigned to operate the WBA Dive Center, says, she is happy and excited to be part of this engagement and looks forward to visit the pre-identified dive sites. According to her, even if she is a native-born of the place, she has not been able to explore many beautiful places around WBA.

Another female participant and CMAS-certified diver, Gernie Tadjah-Ladjaalam, says, feels lucky to be part of the initiative. According to her, this dive center is a rare but timely opportunity, to capacitate local personnel and open up an opportunity for women employees. Being a woman and part of the process builds up her competence that she can be on par with her male colleagues. Divers and diving have always been for men. With their participation, they now believe that women can be divers, too.

Sarah and Gernie are among the trainees of the WBA Dive Center training package that starts yesterday and is to run until July 24th. During this period they will be trained on proper set-up, maintenance, utilization, and storage of equipment; snorkeling, free diving and introduction to SCUBA as among the services to be offered by the center; identifying dive sites properly and testing the dive equipment to be donated by the AECID-funded MILAB project; work out the menu, tariff and promotional materials for the dive center and write all their learnings into an operations guide for their use and to guide their services and interactions with center clients.

WBA is the first inter-LGU cooperation in Basilan Province and is being capacitated by the Spanish aid agency AECID-funded MILAB 2 Project, implemented by the Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG) in partnership with the provincial and selected municipal governments.