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LIA (Mermaid's CDC - Dive Career Development Center) - Mission Statement

Learn-in-Asia is the official Scuba Diving Internship website for Mermaids Scuba Dive Center internships based in Jomtien, Pattaya, Thailand. Since the year 1991 Mermaids PADI CDC (scuba diving Career Development Center) has been offering superb dive instruction but since 1999/2000 we have been offering first class dive training to recreational and professional divers within all-inclusive internship programs. Your professional dive career is of the utmost importance to Mermaids. We strive to, and achieve scuba dive programs that can ONLY be offered by Mermaids PADI CDC in Thailand. As a combination of the courses and the specialised way that we schedule the programs ensure that you are the most employable dive professional and gain dive jobs easily on completion of the programs.

• Mermaids is the first and most experienced PADI CDC (career Development Center) between Bangkok and Cambodia out of over 50 dive centers - this is the highest PADI dive center achievement possible. (you can check this by going to PADI.com

• Mermaid's as an active PADI Career Development Center operates healthy MSDT and PADI STAFF - Master Instructor programs allowing you to reach any level diver you require.

• Mermaid's was guided by the one time youngest PADI Course Director Stephen Blumenthal - in early 2005 Russell Martin our chief instructor became Mermaid's 2nd PADI Course Director - On Steve's passing Russell has taken the helm with a 2nd Course Director assisting on the IDC's. Russell is a Platinum Course Director.

• Mermaids is the ONLY dive facility from Bangkok to Cambodia to offer the IAHD Handicapped scuba diver program for instructors and divers with facilities completely renovated for handicapped persons. Mermaid's works with an active wheel chair using PADI Course Director (Mark worked up to PADI CD within Mermaid's CDC Internship - Mark is the only Wheel Chair using PADI Course Director globally) building on the IAHD program allowing a very precise and accurate perspective on the sensitivities and special requirements of a handicapped diver. Mark, takes the experience over and above the perceived "simulation" experience.

• Mermaids is the ONLY dive center to offer PADI Full face Mask (FFM Specialty outline) training as standard within ALL dive internships.

• Mermaids was the first dive center in ASIA to offer ASSET dry diver training programs. ASSET training was exclusively operated from Mermaids Dive Center Jomtien between 2003 and 2007. Inquire for further details of the ASSET training.

• Mermaids was the first National Geographic Diver center in Pattaya, by over a year. This does not mean that we operate a better course. A PADI outline is standard and it is the instructors teaching the courses that inject that 'little extra' to make a course stand out. The reason for mentioning the time scale is to show you how pro-active Mermaids as a center are. If there is a fantastic PADI dive course out there - we want to be able to offer it to you as soon as possible.

• Mermaids dive career development center cares so much about your dive employment to place as much emphasis on this as any other part of the program. Mermaids secured a partnership with Divers-jobs allowing all Mermaids divers exclusive access to dive jobs not offered to other divers. The Diversjobs contract is just 1 part of a 4 step plan to gain work after dive training. With the amount of divers that Mermaids have physically working in the dive industry globally the system has proven itself to be one of the strongest scuba diving job placement services available. Your dive career matters massively to us.

• Mermaids is the ONLY dive training facility in Pattaya to have our own in-house Hydrostatic and Visual Tank Testing (including the new Visual Plus Electronic Testing Equipment) - this technology compliments the technical courses offered.

• Mermaids is the ONLY dive center from Bangkok to Cambodia to have a privately owned diver hotel for all of our interns. Stay opposite the dive center in a massively convenient Wi-Fi hotel owned by Mermaids.

• Mermaids is the ONLY Pattaya dive center to privately own and operate 4 dive boats daily. These boats are ONLY for Mermaid's divers, interns and other personal customers.

All of the above is dedication to your personal progression as a PADI dive professional.

How do WE and the above make you more employable within the dive industry? - At any one time in the world there are many "PADI dive instructors" receiving their rewards for hard work and effort and achieving their professional diver status. Due to this fact you need something a little special to be more dive employable than the next guy and gal instructor. Admittedly a lot of employability comes down to professionalism, presentation and your attitude in general but also and importantly your dive credentials - this is where we assist.

The www.iahd.org (International Association of Disabled Divers) certification has been one of our proudest courses run yet. Mermaids put so much into the course that we even changed our facilities to be 100% disabled diver friendly. There are other shops in Asia that have done the same and we applaud them for being pro-active in this area. Diving should be available to all - the able bodied and the disabled. In IAHD Mermaids are an instructor training center. Imagine that you and another recently passed instructor approach a dive employer - what can you both offer them? You can both teach diving up to DM. You can both cover divemaster responsibilities etc. However, if this dive shop employs you then they now as a dive company can hang a new sign in the window and you have brought a new service and skill to that center for them to be able to market! They can now offer a dive program that they could not before! FACT! I am sure that you see where I am coming from. - We ensure that you are different from the rest. - The IAHD program is JUST ONE example of why we are different. Imagine if you had the ASSET program under your belt along with the FFM diver course... All of our instructors and dive masters receive specialties included as standard within the package.

We have an excellent reputation within the dive industry for producing 1st class and highly employable divemasters, instructors and "dry side" dive technicians and do everything within our means to maintain and build upon this.

For Scuba Diving vacations - Why would you need LIA? - Good question but not one that is hard to answer. So many people come to Thailand, Asia for a short holiday or for an extended period for a scuba diving holiday or an internship / traineeship program for example. You can search on the net all day, every day. You may find web sites with lovely flashy graphics and beautiful JAVA script pictures and still be given the same answers about dive training facilities, boats, equipment etc but what does that really tell you? It never guarantees that you have safe air, the boat is sea worthy, that the equipment is maintained or even if the instructors can swim! All it guarantees you is that they have a great web master. Please, Mermaids implore you, do all of your thorough homework before committing to any dive program - and that includes ours.

Where's the catch? I am hurt by that :-) - but a very sensible question. THERE IS NO CATCH. You as the customer pay NO MORE, you have my 24-hour support and in many cases you actually receive a discount on the rack price that you would have paid if you had gone direct. Contact me for more info.

PLEASE NOTE: The reason that TEFL English teaching courses are offered is as increasingly we are receiving couples where diving does not appeal to both parties. The TEFL teaching is NOT our business but we have affiliated with a local company in order to offer something for the "divers" partner. Coming through LIA offer you an automatic TEFL course discount also.

"A bad day scuba diving beats the hell out of your very best day in the office".

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