Raise Awareness to Protect Wildlife in Cambodia

Recently the Kouprey Express (KE), Wildlife Alliance’s mobile environmental education unit, had the opportunity to attend a two-day first aid training course at the Cambodian Red Cross. This kind of training is necessary as it allows the team members to be able to respond to emergency situations with confidence. The KE team, which already gives each school a first aid kit, can now also educate teachers and staff on how to deal with minor injuries. Also, as KE expands to more rural areas, this information can be a matter of life and death for villagers who have very little access to medical care. The two-day course covered CPR, proper handling of snake bites, wound wrapping, and many other procedures.

Along with expanding their training, KE is expanding its partner network. With the immense success of previous collaborations, the team continues to partner with more and more NGOs outside of the Koh Kong Province. Our newest partners include Daughters of Charity-Cambodia from Takeo Province, White Dove of Cambodia from Siem Reap Province, Asia’s Hope International from Battambang Province and Mary Knoll International in Phnom Penh Thmey. Through these partnerships, the Kouprey Express was able to reach out to 699 people with the purpose of promoting environmental education, teacher training, and wildlife and forest conservation awareness in Cambodia.

When visiting the 282 students at White Dove of Cambodia in Siem Reap and Asia’s Hope International in Battambang Province, the Kouprey Express was exploring new territories in an effort to push the project towards a more national effort. The students from these organizations learned about the importance of and threats to wildlife, conservation, and ways to protect Cambodia’s wildlife. They also played games, made wildlife art, and won books, t-shirts, pens and posters. After their lessons, the students and staff were able to make a field trip out to Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center, which was very exciting as this was the first time many of them had ever left their province.  At PTWRC, they toured the facility with guides, took notes in their new note books, and met Lucky the dancing elephant! For many, meeting Lucky was the most interesting part of the tour because it was their first time seeing a real elephant.

Kouprey Express and its activities are spreading through Cambodia! It is very encouraging to watch our environmental education project expand and get the message of conservation and wildlife protection out to greater areas.