by Kerry DYKE
kerryd@isb.ac.th
Did we just rescue an Elephant? We did!!
We recently did an eco trip (see photos here) that involved us working at Elephants World in Kanchanaburi. There we learned about KamKaew, an elephant that was at the sanctuary and had many elephant friends, but then the owner decided to take her out and put her in a show to make money. Now she performs silly and unnatural tricks all day long for tourists who I presume are unaware of what they are really supporting. You can see some of her work here. Elephants World has been raising money to buy this elephant from the owner and get her back to the sanctuary where she clearly had a better life. They asked us if we could raise about 30,000 baht to give them enough money in total to return KamKaew back to his friends.
The students were keen to help and luckily the next day was the start of Elephant Week at ISB. The timing was perfect. The HS students already had many things planned to bring about awareness of some of the issues. ES students made 100’s of drawings and pieces of art about saving elephants to decorate the cafeteria. To raise money HS and MS students sold elephant shirts, baked goods and had people sponsor teachers or a friend to eat what some might consider ‘gross’ food such as marmite, veggie-mite, durian, and even insects, we also had Ms Indigne dress up as an elephant and give out ele hugs all to raise funds. Now we had a direct cause and on day 1 we raised 7000 baht, day 2 12,000 baht, and on day 3 we raised 21,000 baht. We currently have gone over 45,000 baht already and one more day to go. See these pics here
Elephants World was delighted to hear this news and have informed us that they are trying to have KamKaew returned on the 10th of December!
Well done to the HS and MS Elephant Ambassador teams. Your innovative and creative FUNdraising made a real difference. Thanks to the students, teachers, and parents who really came through on such short notice to support that cause.
While we are on this topic and holidays are around the corner, this is a great time to introduce you to our Elephant Education website. It is still in it’s infant stages, but there is already plenty of useful information on there to help anyone make a wiser and more animal friendly decision when choosing any sort of elephant tourism activities. We hope that the ISB community will use this site to have a positive impact on elephant tourism. Eventually we want to launch this out to the world! MS students are continuously working on the website but you can have a sneak preview if you go to Elephant Education website.
A more sustainable Villa
Since last year Green Panther students and teachers have been working in a very positive manner with Villa supermarket on how to make their store more sustainable and eco friendly. On Friday, November 21, 2014 Villa came to ISB and we had reached some agreements to be implemented.
- Villa has agreed to sign the Blue List, meaning they will go completely Shark Fin Free. They also agreed to phase out the shark fin flavoured seaweed they were selling just to send the right message. Find out more on this campaign at https://www.finfreethai.org
- Villa will soon launch their green bag campaign, which was designed by ISB students. We hope that customers will be supportive of this move towards less wasteful plastic bags and using a reusable bag.
- Down the line we will be setting up a green points system whereby you can gain eco points for your sustainable shopping decisions. A green line for those bringing a reusable bag. As well, Villa is very interested in starting a community recycling center.
Shark Fin Free
This group has 3 accomplishments already this year. We recently got Villa, Tops, and UFM Fuji supermarkets to agree to sign the Blue List and become 100% Shark Fin Free. Next we are looking at Tesco, Macro, and other supermarkets.