HELLO K1!! I think some of you guys might have received this in your e-mail but for those of you who haven't you guys can kindly read below, its from my friend who's in the Project Elephant nauture park and their school(smu) would be taking a trip down in a few weeks time to help save the elephants!Take a look at how elephants in Thailand are mistreated and support a cause against it.Some of good-hearted classmates have already contributed, Thank You!If your intrested you may e-mail me at rainbow_galaxy@hotmail.com.
Also,Joey proposed that we should make this has our class shirt since its cute and its for a good cause!haha=DGood idea Joey!I wouldn't mind doing so...so its up to you guys to decided?since we dont have a class shirt anyway...
Study hard for exams, see you guys next week!
-mo-
Happy Lunar New Year! Hope you had a money-filled, fat-filled and fun-filled CNY celebration!!!
Anyway, many of you might have heard of/even went for elephant rides and performances in Thailand, where the intelligent elephants stand and walk on their hind legs, paint pictures of rosy flowers!” However, behind these impressive performances and stunts, lies a dark secret.
Do you know the ordeal that Thai elephants go through in order to learn those tricks? These elephants are tamed in a ceremony called the “Phajaan” where elephants between the age of 4 -6 are forced into a cage that barely fits their bodies and are chained in place. They are deprived of food, water and sleep and are poked and prodded with bamboo sticks with nails embedded at the end, knives and are also shot with stones and other projectiles. This tortuous process is meant to “break the spirit of the elephant”; so as to force the elephants into submission and obedience and allow the owners to take over entirely. The torture is endured by the elephant for up to 6 days until the owner senses that the spirit has been changed. After Phajaan, the elephant is never allowed to see its mother again and it is believed that even if it did, the mother would no longer recognize the elephant as its own since its spirit is changed so drastically.
After Phajaan the elephants endure more horrifying torture when they are trained at knifepoint to paint pictures, play musical instruments or are forced to stand on their head for the benefit of elephant shows. After watching a video on Phajaan, my perspective on animal shows and animals for entertainment changed. If you would like to take a look, you can go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC1kXyZpdWI.
The Elephant Nature Park is looking to change all of this. Lek, the founder of the park and a woman named one of the worlds 25 most influential women has established ENP to accomplish two main goals: To rescue elephants from severe abuse and neglect and give them a life as close to a life in the wild as possible and to re-educate both tourists and native Thais about the elephant. Lek risked her life to document Phajaan so that the world can see what is happening. To find out more about Lek and Elephant Nature Park, or to read about the stories of each resident elephants, you can go to http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/.
So, as some of you may or may not know, I am part of this overseas community involvement project called Project Elephant Nature Park (ENP) 2010. Basically, the aim of our project is to raise public awareness on the plight of endangered Asian elephants and to provide supporting roles to Elephant Nature Park (ENP) and its stakeholders. We will be heading over to ENP in Thailand, Chiangmai on a 2weeks volunteers’ programmes and we are currently raising funds for through the sale of shirts! So please pour out your love and share a tiny-winy part of your red packets with these elephants!
The shirts cost only $10 and the designs are super cute!
We ran out of a few sizes for some designs and colours so let me know the designs, colours and sizes that you want so I can order them. All proceeds will go towards the funding of Elephant Nature Park!!!
Spread the word and spread the love. Thank you!