Tuesday, February 24, 2015

The Enormous Elephant Run

Ok, so it's drawing close to the end of March now (eek!!) and we can probably all begrudgingly accept that the new year hype is officially dead. I made about ten New Year's resolutions and so far I have broken about seven; I have re-made them all for lent though so let's see how far I get this time!

During my lovely, hot Christmas break back home in Kenya, I went to visit my adopted elephant Faraja - click here to read more about him! As it happens, that was the last time I would see him in the enclosures just off Nairobi National Park because (drum roll please) he has now moved onto the final phase of his journey before he returns to the wild. As a foster parent to the elephant, I receive monthly news from the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust whose mission it is to find and rescue abandoned elephants just like Faraja and care for them at their nursery just outside the capital. Some of these stories are truly heartbreaking and this got me thinking how else I might be able to help and complete one of my new year resolutions - ta-da! - along comes the Enormous Elephant Run!! 

The basic gist of the run is to dress in an elephant onsie (yep, you read that correctly) and congregate at Clapham Common in South West London to run, jog, power walk, meander, trot, stampede - or whatever takes your fancy! - all in aid of the wonderful David Sheldrick Wildflife Trust. To give you a bit more background on where this money is going, the Trust funds a wide variety of projects including the care of orphaned elephants, anti-poaching campaigns, the establishment of aerial surveillance and mobile vet units, and community outreach programmes to raise conservation and animal welfare issues in local areas. And they are incredibly effective: to date, 180 orphans have been successfully rescued, 1,200 poachers arrested and, in 2014 alone, 540 elephants were treated by their mobile vet units. Pretty impressive, right? But there is still such a long way to go, so brace yourself for a reality check. Across Africa, one elephant is killed every 15 minutes for the ivory in their tusks, which makes an estimated 35,000 elephants killed every year. Shockingly, elephants could be extinct in ten years. 

It hit me how bad the problem was over Christmas when my cousins were visiting. Having grown up in Africa, I have seen a lot of elephants in the wild, and I waved my cousins off thinking that they would have the same experience. But they came back having seen only one herd. That's when it hit home that something drastic needs to be done to help the elephants and other animals that the Trust works with. I am a passionate and proud advocate of conservation and I hope that you guys get involved too, to give a voice to those who cannot stand up for themselves.

I have to admit that the chance of running around in an elephant onesie was a no brainier for me but, if that's not incentive enough, we are also going to be attempting to break a Guinness World record! With our own elephant herd in the park, we aim to have the most ever people dressed up as an elephant in one place at one time. Pretty cool. I don't know about you, but I thought I would never see the day...

The best part is that there are two events taking place this summer. If you want to join me on Clapham Common on June 6th then brilliant, but if not, then keep the 25th July free and head to Heaton Park in Manchester. But for those of you who can't make either, there are other ways to donate or become a foster parent - click on the link below for details. And if running is the problem (and the allure of getting your own elephant onesie keepsake doesn't convince you!) then let me tell you that I have convinced my housemate to enter. To put this into context, he spent the ENTIRE of last weekend on the sofa and even walked to the shops in his dressing gown; if he can do it, you definitley can!









If you really don't want to run but still want to help, please sponsor me here! Even if its only a pound :)

To sign up for the race, click here or email infouk@sheldrickwildlifetrust.org and for more information on the lifesaving work of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, click here.
Watch the video of the rescue of Faraja - here!

*Some of these images are property of The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and were given to me for use in this post 

No comments:

Post a Comment