by Kerry Dyke, MS Service coordinator
ISB is trying to help protect wild elephants through student fund-raising. Thailand’s elephant population has dropped from over 300,000 elephants to less than 3500 wild elephants in about 100 years. While poaching for ivory and capturing elephants for entertainment are serious issues, the main reason for such a dramatic drop in wild elephants in Thailand is habitat loss. As human populations increase and more wild land is converted to farms, resorts, factories, housing, etc the elephants lose space and vital corridors to areas they need to reach. We are working with Ourland to help them secure land in an important corridor allowing wild elephants and other wildlife to reach the river Kwai.
Students from ES, MS, & HS participated in the Jumping For Elephants event all of next week (Feb 8-13). In PE, students had 5 minutes to jump or skip. Some also participated outside of PE time. The goal was for students to take action by getting sponsorship and then skipping rope or performing jumping jacks to raise money. This coming week, those students who got pledges will begin to collect the money to drop off at the dropbox in the ES, MS, and HS offices on Monday, Feb 15.
It is important to note that while we prefer hands on experiential learning at the site, COVID has made that very difficult and not practical right now. Ourland has also stated that funds are what they need most at the moment. Therefore, for now, our action has been this fundraiser. However, we will continue our long term relationship with Ourland for experiential service learning through Eco Trips and the Grade 7 service trip once it is appropriate to do so.
If you would like to see our full presentation please click here.
