The positive impact of university activities in the field of fish farming: Aqua Team for a better aquaculture society

The positive impact of university activities in the field of fish farming: Aqua Team for a better aquaculture society – Suez University is a public university in Egypt, situated in the large Suez governorate and it is among the top scientific education institutions within the cluster of public and private universities in Egypt.

The university aims to provide an educational environment that is capable to teach, enhance learning, and keep pace with the technological advancements and the challenges of the society for graduate and scientific research of the Suez Canal Zone.

In particular, the Faculty of Fisheries Resources stands out for its academic activities and courses in the field of fish farming, fishing, marine environmental science and the blue economy. The marine sector has enormous potential and requires new skills and specialists – the university is able to provide students with theoretical and at the same time practical training – and this is what the marine sector needs, considering that topics such as aquaculture are very practical and technical besides scientific.

If you want to succeed in the labour market, you need to be in contact with real work in parallel with your studies, and this can only be done through opportunities provided by the university.
For this reason, a group of youths created an initiative to support future specialists from the faculties of fisheries, agriculture and veterinary medicine who are interested in the fisheries sector, in order to achieve a more enthusiastic and competent generation: Aqua Team was thus founded. Through practical training, community initiatives and training workshops in the field of fish farming and marine fishing, Aqua Team supports students and recent graduates.

Overview of Aqua Team’s founders

Team Aqua was founded in 2018 by 3 engineers, colleagues and friends Khalid Jad, Ramadan Al-Manyawi and Mohammed Ibrahim.
In the first year only 7 people took part in the team as volunteers in the Suez governorate. It currently consists of 100 volunteers in the governorates of Kafr el-Sheikh and Suez, and its activities take place in all coastal governorates (Port Said, Damietta, Suez, Kafr el-Sheikh, etc.).
The team is focused on the importance of preparing young people for the labour market, facilitating students’ and graduates’ access to training and familiarising them with the fisheries faculty, and stimulating the development of training content in line with the labour market.

Challenges that the Group has encountered since its inception

The Group faced a number of challenges, in particular the initial mistrust from many students, graduates and academics, but this opinion quickly changed when the results of the Group’s activities became evident. Aqua Team also continues to rely on self-sustainability efforts to develop and provide services to a wider group of beneficiaries.
A significant role in the Group’s vision and activities depends on the synergy of different links in the fish value chain based on direct relationships with fish farmers, specialists and researchers.

The main objective is to provide food, preserve resources and train labour.

Some activities realized by the team:

• 3 important territorial awareness campaigns;
• 64 training sessions and field visits to many fish farms;
• Each year, Achieve Your Startup is an annual conference, the third season of which is currently being prepared, and is a competition aimed at fish entrepreneurs in which the initiative seeks to highlight the ideas of young people for their development and contribute to solving problems in the sector, as well as opening a space for new jobs.

Below are the references of the Facebook channels:

FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/aquariumteam2
FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2477070818978142/?hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen&multi_permalinks=6442152849136566

The positive impact of university activities in the field of fish farming: Aqua Team for a better aquaculture society