PADI® and Project AWARE® announce the new PADI AWARE Foundation®. For 30 years, PADI and Project AWARE have worked together to address critical issues impacting ocean health. Today, this relationship is made stronger by putting the weight of the PADI mission, brand, annual global media reach (of nearly 15 billion impressions) and organizational support behind this non-profit public charity to achieve critical ocean conservation goals in the years ahead.
“This investment in the ocean’s future is so essential that, in addition to other funding sources, PADI Worldwide has committed to direct financial support of the foundation’s operation and work. This means that in a sense, simply by taking a PADI course, every PADI Diver you certify helps save the ocean – and we will encourage them to do more.,” says Drew Richardson, President and CEO of PADI Worldwide. “We invite all ocean conservation-minded divers, stakeholders and organizations to join us in supporting the PADI AWARE Foundation.”
As one of its first projects, PADI AWARE Foundation will launch its Community Grant Program in 2021 to local communities. These grants will provide much needed financial resources to PADI Dive Centers and Resorts around the planet for local ocean protection initiatives and activities.
“There’s no question the dive community is strategically positioned to positively influence the future of our ocean,” says Richardson. “The PADI organization will engage and activate the growing global PADI Torchbearer community – millions of active and engaged divers, 128,000+ PADI Pros, and more than 6600 PADI Retailers and Resorts and growing – on an unprecedented scale to provide human resources that participate broadly and locally in ocean-saving initiatives.”
In the final stages of preparing for a global launch to PADI Divers on World Oceans Day (8 June), the PADI AWARE Foundation is created specifically to enable global ocean conservation through local action. To further elevate and support PADI’s Mission, it will expand and build new conservation programs, activist movements, public outreach, courses and partnerships that address key ocean threats such as marine debris, climate change, marine habitat loss and vulnerable species protection across the planet.
Learn more at padi.com/conservation.
