In 2014, Sonya Joel was working as a cashier in the Marshall Islands when she heard about a training course on aquaculture, the practice of raising and harvesting plants and animals in water environments.
Aquaculture was a new industry in the Marshall Islands, a chain of islands between Hawaii and the Philippines. Like fishing, aquaculture is largely considered a man’s job among the Marshallese people.
But that didn’t deter Sonya. “I wanted to try something new, something different,” Sonya said.
She signed up for the three-month course offered by Aquaculture Technologies of the Marshall Islands.
Sonya soon began learning how to breed fish and make feed, among other skills. “We poured fish eggs over a net, counted them and computed how many eggs would be in the tank,” she recalls. Maintaining the right number of fish, she explains, keeps the fish healthy and tanks clean and allows for smooth egg collection.
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