Over the past few weeks, several staff from AECO have been remotely teaching students from Campus Kujalleq in Qaqortoq, South Greenland. The teaching took place as part of AECO’s Community Engagement program which aims at increasing cooperation with communities from Greenland, Svalbard, Iceland and Arctic Canada.
Thanks to video conferences, the students received biology lessons focusing on Arctic fauna and ecosystems, but also on crisis communication as part of their curriculum. Campus Kujalleq provides Greenland’s only tourism education programs and through its teaching, AECO contributed to developing cruise skills and knowledge among the students, which were very well received by the students according to Head of Education Rie Oldenburg from Campus Kujalleq:
– The students thought that the presentations from AECO contained new knowledge, which expanded and supplemented their curriculum. They appreciated hearing about real-world experiences and stories as something that could also be used in their future work. At the same time, we appreciate AECO’s inspiring involvement of sustainability in tourism, Rie Oldenburg elaborates.
For AECO’s Assistant Director, Anders la Cour Vahl, who himself participated in the teaching, this collaboration is a good example of how the expedition cruise industry can help develop local skills:
– It was a great pleasure to be part of teaching the upcoming Arctic guides. They were very motivated. We hope to see more Greenlandic guides aboard AECO members’ ships in the future, he says.
AECO’s Community Engagement Specialist Ann Eileen Lennert adds:
– Teaching is one of our tasks in the area of Community Engagement, which is about supporting local communities’ interests in competence development and contributing to regional tourism training programs. Teaching for Campus Kujalleq was a great way to contribute our experience in sustainable tourism and ‘best practice’, concludes Ann Eileen Lennert.
