Hello all, it’s me again. After an exam-filled week, and only a few days from departure, I’m ready to be in Trinidad. The build up to this trip has been amazing, with a lot of great information and interactions with our client, Nature Seekers, over the last few weeks. As our group continues preparing for our trip to Trinidad, anticipation continues to build for this amazing opportunity to work with such a unique organization as Nature Seekers and to appreciate an equally as unique country.

Nature Seekers is a community-based organization that focuses on the protection of seas turtles in Trinidad. Nature Seekers started in 1990, when slaughter rates for child-bearing, female sea turtles were at their peak in Trinidad. They were founded to help protect the sea turtles and their nesting grounds, so the population could grow and poachers would be detracted from continuing to harm the sea turtles. Through the early process of helping the sea turtles, the community started to get upset that beaches were closed during nesting season, so Nature Seekers sought a solution that would allow the community to enjoy the beach, and help with their collective goal of saving the sea turtles. Through paid, guided tours on the beach, Nature Seekers was able to start making money and paying their staff to work for the organization. Over the years, Nature Seekers has converted eight poachers and children of poachers into conservationists, some have become the most espoused proponents of this issue. Nature Seekers plays a crucial role in their community, helping to convert these poachers into conservationists while also promoting their mission to the community, who in turn support them and help them to patrol beaches and protect the sea turtles and their nesting sites.

Our project is part of a ten year collaboration between Nature Seekers and Pitt Business. Currently, Nature Seekers is only able to accept payment through cash and wire transfer, so we’ve been tasked with finding an online booking system that allows for credit and debit card usage when accepting payments. We also will be evaluating changes to the Nature Seekers website to allow for a more client-focused, virtual atmosphere for their organization. This will streamline the payment process for bookings, and help to grow the influence of Nature Seekers, spreading awareness further of their mission. Ideally, these efforts will promote more sales for Nature Seekers, stimulating their effort and bringing in more and more business to both spread their message and work towards their overarching goal of saving the sea turtles. We will sum up our final recommendations in a report for Nature Seekers that they can choose to pursue to help them achieve their goals with a new, modern approach to the way they conduct business.

Through this trip to Trinidad to meet with the Nature Seekers, we are hoping to get a more firm grasp upon the organization and how they operate, to best tailor our recommendations for them. We plan to fully immerse ourselves in the Nature Seekers experience, following them around during the regular duties of a Nature Seekers conservationist, so we may truly grasp the depth of the work they do and the crucial details that go into it. Through presentations and meetings, we have been able to grasp parts of the whole that makes up what Nature Seekers is, but there truly is nothing like that first hand experience with them to understand how we can best help them in the work that we do.

Another important part of this trip is understanding the overarching culture of Trinidad and the community as a whole. Nature Seekers are major community partners, and they are appreciated throughout their community. For us to understand the full depth of how Nature Seekers works within their community, it is absolutely necessary for us to immerse ourselves in that community and take in what this amazing country has to offer.

There are some cultural challenges that we anticipate facing while we are in Trinidad when it comes to how business is conducted, and how different it is from what we consider “normal” here in the United States. For example, Trinidad’s overall economy relies heavily upon informal transactions and “hustle culture” in that many citizens of Trinidad may sell homemade food or offer specific services exhibiting their personal skills. This poses a challenge for us to understand business when there is typically informal or a complete lack of bookkeeping for some of these informal businesses. It also opens us up to a very different aspect of business where it’s based heavily upon community and culture, whereas we are used to marketing selling us products rather than our neighbors, family, etc.

Another example of a cultural norm that could pose a challenge for us is the strong focus that Trinis have on festivities, like Carnival. Many Trinis use events like Carnival to promote some of their “side hustles”, especially those who sell homemade food, but predominantly these kinds of celebrations are reprieves from working in general. It is not unusual for very few people to go to work during these kinds of celebrations in the community, because there is such a strong focus on community. This could pose a challenge to us because we may not be able to fully grasp how business is conducted during our time in Trinidad, as Carnival is going on during the first half of our trip. While these celebrations can limit our ability to understand business practices in Trinidad, we will still make an effort to take in as much as we can and use that to help us with our recommendations to Nature Seekers.

One of our readings in class this semester that really stood out to me was actually one of shortest, entitled “Building an Ethical Partnership”. This reading provided focused descriptions of five core pillars of an ethical partnership: personal responsibility and accountability, respect, care and value for the well-being of all, integrity, and collaboration. The description of integrity is one that has really stuck with me, “We will all fall short of consistently acting with integrity every day in every relationship. But part of integrity is owning the fact that we do fall short and seeking ways to move closer to full integrity with those values.” This made me reflect on imperfection, and it truly applies to this situation with Nature Seekers. Trinidad is a country of people that value integrity, and partnership, and yet they have been plagued with this issue of illegal poaching, from members of their community. The integrity that Nature Seekers has expressed in their practice of converting poachers to conservationists puts this value on full display. The core values of Nature Seekers are based in their community, and integrity is drawn from one’s core values. Here, Nature Seekers is supporting their community by bringing these poachers in and helping them rehabilitate themselves through the mission of conservation.

I am beyond excited for our trip, starting in just a few days, and I can’t wait to talk about it once we have returned. Our goals are set, to truly immerse ourselves in this Nature Seekers experience and develop a thorough understanding of how we can help them to further develop their organization. I couldn’t imagine a better partner to be working with for such a great cause.