Nopasin Chaiparichat standing in front of the humpback whale model in the Warrior Recreation Center

On Sept. 30, 22 students from 11 countries volunteered to show UH Mānoa students around a 45-foot blow-up humpback whale model.

The model was a part of a collaborative exhibit held in the gymnasium at the Warrior Recreation Center. The East-West Center and NOAA’s Education and Outreach department planned the exhibit to recruit volunteers for the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale Marine Sanctuary.

“These are important issues we are trying to address, and without volunteers, we can’t do the outreach we want,” said NOAA Education and Outreach Specialist Leon Geschwind.

The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale Marine Sanctuary is a collection of protected waters throughout the Hawaiian Islands. The protected area safeguards the winter breeding grounds for over half of the population of north Pacific humpback whales.

Fellows of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) staffed the event as a part of their five-week national exchange program. The aim of the program is to give young professionals leadership opportunities in water resource related careers.

Nopasin Chaiparichat is a young architect from Thailand. He is one of the 22 YSEAL academic fellows who volunteered to work at the exhibit. The Mānoa Mirror

He spent the day showing students around the life-sized juvenile humpback whale model while telling them facts about humpback biology. The model even included an inner abdominal cavity, which students could walk inside to see the whale’s internal organs.

Chaiparichat says they are “here to raise awareness and find volunteers for whale health.”

Volunteers make up a significant portion of the conservation efforts in the protected waters. There are dozens of volunteer opportunities from outreach and education to fieldwork naturalists and citizen scientists.

Geschwind says it has been hard to find volunteers to staff their outreach events, making the YSEALI fellows’ participation especially valuable.

“This event would not have been possible without them,” he said.

Lance Boyd, senior education leadership specialist at the East West Center, said he hopes for the YSEALI fellows to take home what they learn in Hawaiʻi about marine resources, using the leadership and knowledge they learn to make a difference for their communities.

Geschwind said their goal is to “inspire the next generation of marine conservationists by engaging with the public on a visceral scale.”