My name is Marc Raw. I am from Huddersfield and I am 19 years old. Last year I took part in one of the projects in Aruba working on De Palm Island as an activity instructor/life guard for 3 months.

Throughout my VET project I took part in some professional activities and I also did some teaching of these activities to the customer. Some of the activities that I did were snorkelling and Snuba. Snorkelling involved me swimming above the water with my head in the water with a mask on so that I could breath. Snuba is where you are in the water with a mouth piece on, to breathe through tubes that were attached to a float and goggles. I also did sea trek which is where you wear a helmet and walk under water.

In my free time I visited many cultural places. One of the places was called Ayo Rock Formation which was an area in Aruba where it had lots of different types of rocks and boulders to climb and explore. Another place was the California Lighthouse which was based in the Noord. The lighthouse overlooked most of Aruba. There was also De Palm Island which was an activity Island. It had many activities on it and also some flamingos as well.

Whilst being in Aruba I learnt how to run all the activities on De Palm Island. These where: zip line, life guard tower, snorkelling booth, Water Park and air jump. This involved providing excellent customer care.

During my time on this project I learnt how to speak a different language which was Spanish/Papiamento. I also learnt how to live independently, by having to cook my own food, do the weekly shop, travel to places on my own and clean after myself. I was also able to learn how to go sea trekking and also snuba. I was also able to build up on my communication skills and also being to budget my money.

This project could help me in the future as it would open more doors for me applying for different types of jobs, improve on my skills that I already have and learn new skills. It has enhanced my CV greatly, and the whole experience was amazing.

Project co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union – The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.