If you follow me on social media, you may have seen a tribute post for the Bubbles of Hope members. I thought it would only be fair to give them a shout out on this blog too.
The group had its very first cleanup on the 2nd April 2022. The goal was to get out once or twice a month, but I quickly realised it wouldn’t be as easy. First I had to find young divers eager to join to help me make a difference. To find them I started scouting in my class by simply asking, and extended it to my whole school with a poster set up in the hall and later distributed by the teachers to the targeted year groups. A letter published in our weekly newsletter was also shared in hope to reach both students and parents. As I had joined several reef cleanups myself where I was the only minor, I really wanted this group to be made up of teens only, from 10 to 17 years. Little by little some students accepted to be part of Bubbles of hope, making it official by purchasing the t-shirt with the logo I had designed.
Today, Bubbles of Hope has 11 members, from 11 to 16 years. Mostly – but not only – from my school. I knew one of them from outside school, and I was very happy to receive a request from a homeschooled teen girl traveling around the world, currently based in KK. She had come across a post about this group and was eager to join! Did I mention I also have four pairs of siblings which is absolutely awesome; not to forget two sisters who have since then moved overseas but regularly come back and make a point to do a reef cleanup with us.
Unfortunately gathering everyone on the same day happened to be quite tricky. Young people are definitely busy during the weekends, despite what people might think. Tuition, classes, family plans… We still haven’t had a chance to be all together at once. But with a bit of luck and eagerness we did manage to achieve 12 cleanups in 17 months and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. I also wanted to highlight one of my IG followers, a fellow young diver from England who messaged me that she was very inspired by our group. She decided to do some cleanup herself in the nearest park to her house with a friend and sent me the video, since diving is not as accessible for her as it is for us. I couldn’t be more happy to know our group can reach youth literally across the world who are inspired enough to do their part. The saying do good and good things will come back is very true in our case. What better reward than bumping into a turtle, some shy reef shark or even a whaleshark like we did at the beginning of this year!
Glad to announce we have two new members ready to join. I said it before but I can say it again: Bubbles of Hope is constantly looking for young divers to join us. Thanks to Scuba Junkie Kota Kinabalu we have a boat, a captain and divemasters ready to support us. I hope more youth will be onboard in the future. I know this project might feel like a drop in a huge ocean but I believe anything is better than nothing – and I definitely hope that this will create a continued wave of change in each of our members’ lives. We are very lucky to live in a place where the temperature above and underwater are really tropical all year long; the marine park is 10-15 minutes away. I know how lucky we are and I believe it would be a shame not to give back to the environment with these idyllic conditions. Each piece of trash/plastic removed makes it feel better and gives us a purpose as young divers.
As always, looking forward to the next time I can meet up with my cleanup gang and we can not only make a difference, but have a blast while doing so. Julia
