Save and Rescue an Asian Elephant Today

Dear Supporters,

As the chilly mornings and evenings of the Thai cold season start to thaw, we begin to reflect on what we have achieved in the first few months of 2019. From helping to fund one of the village elephants to go to an elephant hospital, to attempting to break world records, to hiring a new scholar as part of the NSP (National Scholarship Program), we have seen that the bond we have built with the local community through this project is strong and long-lasting. This gives us renewed confidence about the long-term goals of the project.

With the changing of the seasons, our GVI Trust elephants, Khum Suk, Sah Jah and Lulu have been moved frequently by their mahouts. They now all reside in the conservation forest, which is a protected area about a 1 to 1 ½ hour walk from our base. When we go to see them now, we are likely to encounter any number of village elephants as a number of them are in this area. It is exciting for us to not only see our GVI Trust elephants in a new location almost every day, but to also not know what other elephants may be just around the corner! It is also exciting for our elephants, as Sah Jah may meet up with her son, Mario, Khum Suk may see her daughter, Thom Kham, or Lulu may find herself playing with cousin, Sunti

It is thanks to your help that Khum Suk, Sah Jah and Lulu continue to enjoy their days in their natural habitat. While fundraising to keep these elephants in the forests around Huay Pakoot is an important priority for us, it is also an opportunity to have fun! In January, we held a day of breaking world records. From hula hoop and leapfrog races, to eating contests, to toilet roll stacking, to the longest ping-pong rally, weird and silly challenges comprised the day; even our mahouts joined in with a bamboo cup crafting race! While we did not break any world records, we did establish ones for our project, of which we are very proud; we are now challenging others to break them! The whole event was streamed on Facebook Live and you can still catch-up on the day’s events on the GVI Chiang Mai Facebook page. We raised a good amount of money for the GVI Trust and had great fun doing so!

A portion of the money we fundraise is allocated to an emergency fund, in case a village elephant needs to visit the vet or an elephant hospital with their mahout. It is, of course, very expensive to transport a creature so large, especially for a small, remote community in the mountains of northern Thailand! When Khum Suk’s daughter and Lulu’s mother, Kha Moon, recently became unwell due to a blockage in her gut, the GVI Trust was at the ready to fund her transport to the hospital. Thanks to all of you, Kha Moon is now safe and well back in the forests around Huay Pakoot. Both Kha Moon’s mother and daughter were delighted to see her return!

Not all of the money that the GVI Trust receives goes just towards our elephants; it also allows us to up-skill local community members through the NSP (National Scholarship Program). Our Community Liaisons Dee and Don have been a real success story for the program, as having graduated, they are now an integral link between us and the village. They are taking on new responsibilities within the project regularly, from Dee leading hikes out to see the elephants, to Don leading our garden project; they are an immeasurable asset to us. It is therefore, with great excitement, that we can announce that a new scholar has joined us on the NSP, Su! Su is now with us full-time for three months and will focus on our community activities. With an impressive level of English already and being able to speak four languages (including Mandarin), she is a very talented individual, who we are delighted to be working with as our first female scholar! We are certain that she will be another success story for the NSP and our project.

As ever, we are continually reminded of the importance of this project. Without the work that we do and your critical support, these elephants would not be able to enjoy the life they so desperately deserve. When they’re sick, we can help; when their mahouts need new equipment, we can help; when the villagers want to learn new skills, we can help. Together, we can make a real difference in the lives of the elephants and the local community.

Let’s keep this going throughout 2019!

With Gratitude, 

GVI Chiang Mai 

Dear Supporters,

Happy New Year all! What an eventful few months we’ve had here! With wilderness challenges, a whole lot of cultural celebrations, and a huge spay and neuter clinic for the dogs and cats of the village, 2018 is going to be a hard one to beat.

Imagine our delight to wake up one December morning, head up to base for breakfast, and see our Elephants in the cornfields just across from the village! The mahouts were moving them to a new area to let the forests regrow, and so for a few days we were able to see them walking across the hills and frolicking in the water, even hearing the odd playful trumpet! It was very special for all of us, as this happens very rarely - usually they are hidden in the forests and we have to scramble over tree branches and through rivers to reach them.

Thanks to all of our donors in 2018, our three elephants Khum Suk, Sadja and Lulu are still enjoying a natural life roaming freely through the forest. There is really nothing as special as witnessing these beautiful creatures being able to interact with their environment just as nature intended, and eating natural food. We are still proud to say that Khum Suk, our old matriarch who is coming on 70 years, is still pretty much as healthy and spritely as our younger elephants, and is commonly found knocking down huge bits of bamboo to eat. We attribute this health to her natural life and natural diet that she enjoys thanks to the GVI Trust.

But our work is not yet over. It costs the GVI Trust nearly $2000 every month to maintain this project, and this is why we frequently run fundraisers with our volunteers to be able to raise this money. We’ve had our fair share of fun this quarter, with a lot of celebrations going on including Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and the Thai Lantern festival, so plenty of opportunity to raise some money too! The interns created a Halloween face-painting and food party at base for volunteers and village children, everyone looked sufficiently scary and we managed to raise a significant amount of money for our elephants in just one evening - well done to everyone involved!

Of course I must also mention our Wilderness Camping Challenge - Thank you to all who donated to our challenge of staying out in the forest for two nights, cooking over the fire, and completing survival challenges along with the mahouts. As December approached it was getting rather chilly outside so it was all your donations that really got us through those cold nights! We raised enough to keep Sadja, Lulu and Khum Suk in the forest for another month just from that one weekend, which made it all worth it!

Here's to 2019! 

All our best,

GVI Chiang Mai