Doing good made easy
You might know that the Green Stamp works with the idea that eco choices in life don’t have to be difficult. We work with the slogan “eco choices made easy” for a reason, right?
Over the last year or so, we have learned a lot about the vulnerability of our planet, which resulted in us founding the Green Stamp. During this learning period, we got to know many others who work with the same purpose (save our planet), and we learned about different ways of doing this. It was during the same period we got connected with a couple who lives in South Africa and we were told they had a “green mindset”, just like us.
It took only two messages back and forward to confirm this. Big time! An introduction call followed, and we learned that they have two very strong movements: they feel worried about our planet and patiently waiting for the world to heal is not something they do. They took action!
Because their story is the perfect example of how eco choices can be that simple and the incredible work that they do, we are extremely proud to put them in the Green Stamp’s spotlight!
“Hi there, Welcome to Cherrymac Adventures. Join us on our journey through the oceans, but first let’s get to know each other (this is our story about how we met…)
A few years ago (back In 2017) we each started our course in professional scuba diving. We spent a year doing our Divemaster Qualifications and Instructor Qualifications at the same dive centre. While doing our courses we also got to teach and learn awesome, new diving specialities. Sooo, here is the funny part, Jacques only came to dive, learn, and work. While on the other hand, Charisse came to, dive, learn, and have FUN. During that first year of our journey, we were only Diving colleagues with different goals and we didn’t really spend much time together outside of diving.
But then…
Once we had each mastered our professional courses, Charisse left abroad to work in Dubai in the hospitality industry. Jacques stayed in South Africa and became the manager at the dive centre where we first met. Now for the cute part; we both had crushes on each other the whole time and didn’t even know it, until 9 months later when I returned to South Africa. How crazy is that!!!
We bumped into each other at the local supermarket, sparks flew, and we started to hang out more, spending a lot more time together. After about 4 months Charisse realized she had the travel bug and she planned to leave for Roatan, a small island off the coast of Honduras. The only thing is she didn’t want to travel alone, so she asked Jacques to join her on the spontaneous journey?
Luckily, he said YES!
Why wouldn’t he want to go with? Of course, Jacques was ready to jump on a plane, and who better than with Charisse! So, in 2019 we left together abroad to the Caribbean on a small little paradise island called Roatan. In Roatan, Jacques worked at a Research Dive Centre and Charisse worked at an Eco Dive Centre. With the two of us each working between the different dive centres, we picked up a ton of new and different diving knowledge together. We also met new people, tried all sorts of new foods, and got really involved with the local community.
During our 9 joyful months on Roatan, we got the opportunity to do community outreach programs with the local islanders and tourists. This got the locals and tourists to join our weekly beach and snorkel clean-ups. We also did Dive Against Debris for Project Aware. We were able to take part in the coral conservation projects along the reefs which included constructing coral trees, harvesting corals, and giving coral conservation lectures to the islanders and tourists. Doing all of this made us very conscious of the pollution problems, the plastic problems, lack of awareness about these problems including a lack of general education being provided to the locals. We knew immediately we wanted to make changes and do something, anything about these problems.
This volunteer and conservation experience helped us get to where we are now and made us realize our bigger goals.
After learning so much through the years of diving we grew a strong bond with the ocean and its marine life. We began to fall in love with our amazing earth and all of its creatures.
So, when we got back from overseas, we both decided we wanted to take everything we learned about plastic pollution, conservation, and marine life and try to bring those steps and educational programs here to our hometown, Scottburgh in sunny South Africa. We began with doing our regular beach clean-ups once a week, advertising to the fishermen, locals, divers, and holidaymakers, trying to bring the community together in fighting for our breathtaking oceans, marine life, and simply just fighting for a clean home. Not only for ourselves but the animals too. We all need each other, we are all connected, and we try to show everyone that through diving, educational programs, and beach clean-ups. To save our planet and animals we save ourselves.
Once a week we do our beach clean-ups. It started off very small; only 3 or 4 people would join, and YES that extra 1 or 2 hands made a big difference and help us! Then we began to grow and some days we would have 25 to 30 people. Now can you just imagine how much trash 30 of us can clean and find on the beach in an hour or two…
Well, the answer is an endless amount! There is always trash, and that is exactly what we are trying to change. We don’t deserve to sit and live among mountains of trash and garbage. No one does, not the animals, not the marine life. Getting different and new people to join our clean-ups, made that we could connect with each other. The beach cleans up not only brought a variety of different people together with different interests, jobs, and hobbies. It brought together a community of people who all have the same hope, faith, and ideas to fight for our planet. Fight against pollution, and against animal cruelty. Doing our beach clean-ups, we try to avoid plastic, so we all have 20-litre buckets that we take to the beaches. Doing this over 3 to 4 months in our hometown, we have managed to collect over 500KG of trash and all kinds of trash.
SHOCKING ISN’T IT.
THIS ISN’T NATURAL & THIS ISN’T RIGHT.
IT’S NOT OUR GARBAGE BUT IT IS OUR PLANET.
Now our goal is to travel the world while diving and explore new sites and areas. We want to meet new people of all cultures and teach others to go beyond the unimaginable and open their world to diving, traveling, and conservation. Our goal is to do out-of-water and in-water clean-ups, spreading education about pollution, plastic uses, and recycling. We want to keep doing volunteer work with local communities and conservation projects. We plan to work with youth programs across the world showing them that working together will create a clean, healthier tomorrow and brighter future. We know it sounds insane, but we want to SAVE the Earth.
We see ourselves one day owning a sailboat and going from island to island and country to country; diving with locals and tourists. We will show tourist groups the local sides of the islands and dive resorts to help them understand their culture and traditions. We would love to do tours and dive trips on our sailboat all over the world doing coral research and marine educational courses. We want to start a community, getting more people involved and working together all around the world. Helping a variety of cultures and people and ourselves in all understanding the ways in which we can save, fight, clean, and look after our beautiful planet, OUR HOME!
The more people involved in learning how to better understand the conservation of all our resources and to realize what a blessing the marine life and nature we have around us is, the closer we are to saving mother Earth.”
Written by: Charrise Mcmaster & Jacques v.d. Walt
