Expat Life in Thailand, a Thai magazine, published an article I wrote on why you should avoid elephant riding in your travels. Thanks for spreading the word!
In case you want to read it, you can find it online here on pages 130-131.
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Thanks to Intentional Travelers for publishing my article on how to donate items when you travel. Be an informed donator and traveler - check it out! How to Donate When You Travel
A huge thanks to MuslimVibe for sharing the story of 27 Heartbeats! You can read the article here.
We are busy collecting and sorting more donations as 2017 comes to an end. Looking forward to another great year! I'm so excited to announce that my essay, "Love Them, Don't Ride Them" won the 2017 Teens Who Travel Essay Contest in the International Essay division. I hope this essay helps encourage people who love elephants NOT to ride elephants! If you want to give it a read, please check it out below--and feel free to share!
Love Them, Don’t Ride Them When the plane finally landed, we exited into the steamy, humid air. My droopy eyes could tell this experience would be something totally new. My sister and I had traveled from our small hometown in Colorado, where the air is too thick to breathe and the mountains rise high around each crack of the town. After thirty hours in airport and planes, we had reached Chiang Mai, Thailand, where we would be experiencing a new culture, climate, and an eye-opening volunteer project for the next two weeks. Exhausted, we longed for a good night’s sleep in a cool, air-conditioned hotel room with a cosy bed; however, that is far from what we got. As we drove to the Elephant Nature Park, tall green trees rose on each side of the narrow dirt path. Small villages lined the side of the road, and busy people walked along caring for the children and animals around them and preparing for nightfall. Finally, the bus stopped and we were taken to our room: a tiny room with four small beds, two unknown roommates, and large mosquito netting around each bed to keep off the bugs as we slept. The windows were just holes along each wall, looking out onto the reserve. I could tell by my sister’s eyes that we were both thinking the same thing: what had we gotten ourselves into? Too tired to talk to the people who would be sharing our room, we both climbed into our mosquito nets, but sleep didn’t come. I could hear exotic bugs buzzing outside the windows and in the room. I could even hear the powerful elephants rumbling and calling one another not too far away. I was nervous and excited. Once I started to hear dogs barking in the distance, I knew sunrise was coming soon. I could not wait to experience first-hand the reason I had traveled all this way: to work with the beautiful and nearly extinct animal, the elephant. Once a pink light started seeping in the windows, the dogs were barking without rest. I called to my sister, who also hadn’t slept, and we went to breakfast. Over fried rice and instant coffee, we watched the mist rising off the mountains and looked at families of elephants wandering across the reserve. I had come to the Elephant Nature Park to donate medical supplies and work on partnering in distributing donated medical supplies throughout Asia, but I was looking forward to spending a week working with the elephants. The week was full of beauty: learning how the park had gone from just four elephants hidden in the forest to huge sanctuaries in three countries, feeding a rescued elephant hand-cut watermelons, bathing an injured elephant in the river, walking a three-legged dog who had been rescued from being sold for meat, meeting volunteers from all over the world… the memorable moments came one after another. But my time at ENP also meant learning the truth about elephant conservation. Many tourists coming to Thailand dream of riding an elephant. I will admit, it looks exotic and magical, and if I hadn’t learned what’s behind training an elephant to be ridden. In order for an elephant to be able to safely transport people on its back, it must be trained to fear injury. This means baby elephants are taken from their mothers at a young age and put through the pajaan, a breaking process that includes trapping the elephant in a small cage and injuring it with rocks, sticks, nails, and knives until it follows commands. For elephants to be kept docile, they must be kept afraid. And for animals as smart and caring as these, who know and miss and mourn their families and who crave familial relationships, mental stimulation, and companionship, the results are tragic. Fortunately, most people who want to ride an elephant or watch it paint feel that way because they love elephants. For that reason, education is the solution: if those people understand that the elephants will suffer because of that ride or painting, they may opt for a more humane solution. So as we continue to spread the word, the elephant tourism industry changes, and there is hope for these brave and beautiful creatures. As a visitor to Thailand, it was hard for me to understand how the Thai people could love elephants but also exploit them. I realized that it’s easy to see hypocrisy in other cultures but hard to see it in our own. So I tried to look from the perspective of a Thai person. If training an elephant meant that I could feed my family and send my child to school, would I do it? Probably. By putting aside my initial judgements, I was able to listen. I believe this is how travel helps us to find real solutions: listening to the people involved and finding out what motivates them. My time with the elephants was amazing. It’s caused me to give one piece of advice: before you travel, get informed! Spending an afternoon researching is better than regretting your uninformed instagram photos when you get home. You can have an ethical experience and an amazing time. I didn’t ride an elephant, but I got to look one deep in the eye. I heard one crush a pumpkin in her strong jaws. I stood in the cold river and bathed a baby elephant. I rode a truck through a lush, green forest in the rain to cut elephants food. I got to see elephants up-close and watch them interact with their families, playing and almost laughing together. These amazing experiences will stay with me forever, and I never have to regret them or feel for pain that they caused. My experience in Thailand will stay with me forever because travel imprints on you in a way that nothing else can, and I am glad that it imprinted something I can teach: if you love elephants, don’t ride them! We were so happy to have been able to support VIDAS' work in Mexico this summer with donations from all around Colorado and large donations in Massachusetts and New York of sterile gloves!
It was a great year for sterile glove donations, since the regulations changed to recommend against powdered sterile gloves in the US. As happy as I am to have helped get hundreds and hundreds of boxes of them to organizations like VIDAS, ARK, and clinics around the world, I can't help but be sad about how many hundreds of thousands of boxes must have been thrown away. Next time you're at the hospital, dentist, or doctor's office, speak up! Ask if they have expired items or other samples they'll be throwing away, and then ask if you can donate them to an animal clinic in need. You can find one - or we can help you. On this one service trip alone, VIDAS sterilized 1565 dogs and cats in 6 days. I'm so thankful we got to play even a little part! You can check out their work here. Hope Bridges is a Christian Mission in Thailand that is focusing on teaching health and hygiene clinics in the hill tribe villages. We filled this truck with donated medical supplies to send on one of their outreaches. Thanks for all your donations - another full truck that's saving lives instead of ending up in a landfill.
It took me a little longer than I planned, but now the 27 Heartbeats website is here! If you are a student wanting to start your own chapter of 27 Heartbeats at your school, please fill out the contact form. If you are a medical professional with items to donate, you can contact me directly or check the "How to Donate" page for instructions on mailing your donated items. Or, I encourage you to look for shelter and other locations in need in your own area to avoid shipping costs if you prefer. If you are an organization in need of donations and you'd like to partner with 27 Heartbeats to receive donations, please contact me through the contact form and we'll do our best to work together! 27 Heartbeats Goes to Thailand! 07/29/2017 Throughout the summer I collected a lot of medical supplies from Pediatric Associates of Durango, Durango Dermatology, and many other local medical facilities. After gathering all the supplies, I was finally able to pack it all up and fly to Thailand to see where the medical donations were being sent to. The trip to Thailand was an eye-opening experience. I was able to spend a week at the Elephant Nature Park, helping care for the animals at the reserve and help use my supplies to heal their wounds. The Elephant Nature Park is an inspiring organization, and they continuously rescue elephants, dogs, cats, and many other animals that have been abused and need a new home. Elephants around Thailand and in neighboring countries are tortured in order to be trained for shows and human entertainment. ENP has found a way to save these desperate animals from extinction, and it was an amazing experience to be able to help them with that journey. I also went to the Animal Rescue Kingdom, where most of my medical supplies was donated. The medical supplies has been used for many surgeries, and has helped many dogs that may have otherwise lost their lives. The dogs at ARK were amazing to work with, and I was inspired to see that a shelter that cares for almost 150 dogs started by only one person who had a desire to help. Overall, being in Thailand was an uplifting experience, for I was able to watch my project finally follow through. Thanks to everyone who donated and to all the 27 Heartbeats chapters who are working hard to support organizations like these with items that would otherwise be thrown away. (click on each photo to make it bigger) Thank you - Finalist and Notable MentionThank you to everyone who helped to vote for my photo in the GoAbroad Foundation contest. I was honored to be chosen as a finalist and to draw so much attention to the Elephant Nature Park, and all your votes helped me move to second place and receive a Notable Mention. The winning photo was truly amazing and the prize will go to support a great organization. Thank you!
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AuthorMy name is Amina, and I started 27 Heartbeats to help keep potentially life-saving medical waste out of landfills and, instead, send it to places where it can save the lives of animals and people in need. Archives
October 2017
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