Research Fund 23/06 :: Flossy Barraud

Back in June we received a request from Flossy Barraud, who had just been accepted to do a couple of oral presentations at the World Conference on Drowning Prevention, in Perth, Australia, along with her colleague Aminath Zuna.

Flossy is the leader of the Manta Trust’s Ocean Women project, and is a cross-disciplinary PhD student based in both the Education & Marine Biology faculties at the University of Plymouth, UK.

Her research focuses on exploring women and girls’ recreational access to the ocean in tropical coastal communities, and how increasing access could improve local stewardship and participation in environmental conservation decisions and careers, ultimately helping to better protect elasmobranchs and their vast ocean habitats.

As a part of this project, Zuna and Flossy are piloting a female-focused swimming and snorkelling instructor training programme in the Maldives, Zuna’s home country and Flossy’s place of work for many years. By attending the conference, they would be able to share their learnings about the importance of engaging underrepresented women in tropical coastal communities in ocean science and conservation through equipping them with swimming and snorkelling skills, and learn extensively from those working around the world in similar fields.

There’s no way we could say no to such a request, so we covered Flossy’s accomodation with 232 euros, since Aminath received a full scholarship!