Coral Catch
At a glance
Grantee
Coral Catch (Yayasan Gili Matra Bersama)
Where
Gili Matra Marine Reserve, Indonesia
Program
Marine Habitat Restoration
Grant
2022, 2023 and 2024 Community Grants
Follow
Where are they now · Indonesia · 2022–2024
Once excluded from diving, now leading Indonesia’s reef restoration
Picture a network of 100 Indonesian women leading conservation in their own communities. That’s where Coral Catch is heading, and they’re well on the way.
Coral Catch is Indonesia’s first all-female coral restoration team. Its nine-week scholarship takes women from no formal training to designing and monitoring coral restoration projects of their own.
Forty-four women have graduated, and every one is working in conservation. When Coral Catch began in 2021, there were no women dive professionals in the region.
Today 18 graduates are PADI Instructors, Divemasters or Divemasters in training, guiding divers and teaching them to protect the reef.
Along the way they’ve deployed more than 300 reef structures, planted over 5,000 corals and built an underwater lab to test which restoration methods hold. Graduates teach local children, organize beach cleanups, and have taught 117 local women to swim.
More than 350 women have applied for a program that takes four at a time.
“Our success is not measured by the number of corals we plant or the square meters of reef we restore”
Rose Huizenga, Founder, Coral Catch
What divers made possible
44 graduates
Every one working in conservation.
18 PADI Pros
Instructors, Divemasters and Divemasters in training, in a region that had no women dive professionals in 2021.
300+ reef structures
More than 5,000 corals planted across the Gili Matra Marine Reserve.
117 women swimming
Local women taught to swim by Coral Catch graduates.
Then and now
When PADI AWARE first funded Coral Catch in 2022, the scholarship was a handful of batches old. Community grants went on to fund the scholarships for Batches 3, 5 and 9. By the end of 2025 it had run eleven, with women from across Indonesia applying faster than places open up. Coral Catch is now working toward a network of 100 women conservation leaders.
“Coral Catch helped me regain my confidence and face my fears head-on”
Tania, Coral Catch Batch 9
Watch
PADI AWARE community grants of up to US$10,000 go to PADI Dive Centers and community-based non-profits with an operating budget under US$1 million. Projects are judged on conservation need and community support, and the next round opens in 2027. The next local project is waiting on you.
