Your Internship Experience
You’ll dive into reef restoration work and will have the best time doing it. A BRANCH internship is anything but boring. You get to work with an international team and experience the beauty of Curaçao while helping our reefs and engaging the community. Not one day is the same, thus flexibility is a must.
Your Day-to-Day Tasks
Working with BRANCH is diverse. One moment you are writing a newsletter and crafting a social media post, the next you are creating a coral nursery. You will be doing hands-on reef work: gathering supplies, building nurseries, cleaning them, outplaning coral fragments and tracing their growth, actively learning about coral restoration techniques.
Internship essentials
While being mad about corals helps, there are a few other prerequisites to becoming an intern at BRANCH.
A valid driver’s license
To get around Curaçao a car is indispensable.
Scuba certification
+ buoyancy mastery
+ recent health check
(can be obtained on Curaçao)
A passion for marine life & reef conservation
This is a natural prerequisite for interning with us.
“Branch is a small but highly dedicated team. During my internship, I not only gained valuable practical experience but also truly felt part of the organisation and its mission for nature. It was an inspiring and educational time, thank you.”
Lisa Gerats | Marine Biology Intern
“My time at BRANCH was precious and inspiring. I wish I could have spend more time on the island with the team and also more time under water. I would go back right now if I could.”
Ines Zimmermann | Marketing Intern
“I did a nine-week internship at BRANCH Coral Foundation. I gained a lot of knowledge and experience in coral restoration and also acquired significant diving experience. I was also well supported by Max in completing my personal assignments.”
Storm Henkus | Applied Biology Intern
Our interns
Meet our current (and past) interns
Noa Jongkees
Noa, 22, studies Landscape & Environment Management in Delft. She is currently interning at BRANCH, researching coral and exploring the different restoration methods applied to support coral recovery and conservation.
Tessa Breedveld
Tessa Breedveld, 21, studies Communication at HAN University in Nijmegen. This year, she is managing BRANCH’s website, social media, and events, bringing creativity and energy to the team to help share BRANCH’s story..
Maud Jilesen
Maud Jilesen, 20, studies Environmental Science at HAS University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. During her internship at BRANCH, she researched coral growth rates and assisted with coral cleaning after earning her diving certification, contributing to BRANCH’s ongoing conservation efforts.
Maren van der Vliet
Maren van der Vliet, 21, studies Environmental Science at HAS Green Academy. She is completing a five-month internship at BRANCH Coral Foundation, researching how various factors affect the growth of staghorn coral across the foundation’s seven nurseries.
Oscar van Polen
Oscar recently finished his studies in Environmental Science. Before continuing his Masters he decided to join our team to get some hands-on experience. We love to have Oscar around.
Ines Zimmermann
After deciding to go back to study Ocean Conservation Ines wanted to do an internship in the field. At BRANCH she was responsible for Marketing and the Relaunch and concept of this beautiful website.
Agathe Moreau
Agathe is a passionate and experienced diver and underwater photographer from Belgium. She is currently doing her Masters in Ocean Conservation in France and gets easily distracted by marine life during dives.
Lisa Gerats
As a marine Biology Bachelor Student Lisa was looking for an opportunity to apply her know-how, before starting her Master’s in the same field. Originally from the Netherlands Lisa is an experienced diver and soon to be dive master.
Ready to join us?
You want to be part of the diverse and international coral restoration team of BRANCH. Then contact us now!
