An underwater world
Video case study! As a volunteer coastal tour guide for Parks Victoria Ann knows more than just a bit about Victoria’s ocean life and loves sharing that knowledge with visitors from around the world.
Ann tells her story in her first language of Mandarin, with English subtitles.
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Volunteering case study transcript (English)
Hello. My name is Yang Guang. I am from mainland China. I am a bilingual coastal tour guide for Parks Victoria.
How did you get involved?
It happened by chance that I was at the Balwyn Library, and saw a magazine called Multicultural Victoria. There was an introduction in it about this Coastal Tour Guide program. I was very interested because my hometown is also by the sea. So I made contact with them. The trainer I spoke to was very pleasant, very kind, talked to me about this course. So I joined up.
What do you do?
It was a three month training program, with varied and rich contents. One day each week we had different trainers to teach us. We also had one day a week for hands on field work. Local aboriginal guides talked to us about the history of the Yarra River. We visited Queenscliff, and also visited Rickett’s Point.
For the final practice I led a group of Chinese tour guides, that arrived in Australia just two months ago, less than a year. They were very interested in the tour. They thought it was very meaningful for them. (Before the trip) They had very little opportunity to see and understand about Australia’s sea world. So they were very interested.
What do you like best?
This… as a guide I very much… I benefited a lot from doing it. Because my classmates came from more than ten different countries, we all spoke different languages. We shared each country’s cultures and each country’s traditions. We all became good friends, and improved our English.
Everyone, after this training finished, we have made up a new group. We want to continue to do something meaningful, giving back what we have learnt to the society, to let more people to understand Australian society and to learn about the world of Australian ocean.