Reflections from Chiang Mai (Part 2)

When I came back from Chiang Mai slightly less than 2 months ago, I was still overwhelmed with what I've seen, done and learnt in the 2 weeks of the expedition with Project Elephant Nature Park (ENP).

As I reflected, the project represented the journey of a life-time for me, to be able to lead this project and work with an awesome team to be engaged in contributing towards elephant and nature conservation.

The following pictures are snap-shots of some of the work that the team has done since the conceptualisation of the project began last October...

We were fortunate to be working closely Mr Grant Pereira, the Singapore Director of the Chiang Mai-based Elephant Nature Park. In January, we organised a talk on elephant conservation by Grant, as part of a series of public outreach and education initiatives.

Grant was also instrumental in being the main liaison between our team and the Elephant Nature Foundation. He was recently featured in the Channel News Asia series Saving Gaia - Asia's Leading Green Heroes.

What is organising an OCIP without fund-raising? The team applied to be sponsored by the NYC's Youth Expeditionary Fund (YEP) which sponsored 50% of the cost of the project while SMU co-paid 10% of the cost. The balance had to be paid for by the team and fund-raised.

The 4-months-long fund-raising experience itself was extraordinary. We sold everything from popcorn, Chinese New Year goodies, postcards, ENP mementos to friendship bags filled with goodies, and our team-designed T-shirts. It was like running a 42-km marathon that required much patience and stamina.

The campaign was a success as we were able to exceed our target of $5000 and publicise this project to hundreds of our peers.

The building block of the project is definitely the team itself. We had a team-bonding camp during the term break to build trust and friendships, and peppered our semester with facilitation sessions to learn about conservation issues, team-work, and preparations for the trip.

On the first day of the trip at Chiang Mai, we were treated to a wonderful dinner at a cafe run by a guest inn that we stayed at for the first and last nights of the trip. Of course, on our agenda too was the shopping at the famous bazaars that sold anything from clothes to traditional handicrafts and food.

We had to take a van on an hour-long journey to the ENP. At the first day at the Park, we were briefed on the history of the Park and safety procedures for handling elephants. We were also introduced to many of the elephants at the Park, and even had the opportunity to feed and wash them in the adjacent river.

If you thought washing your cars was just plain painful, wait till you wash these towering, humongous beasts that had to be bathed twice a day!

Oh, how can we forget about the morning chores at the Park? Apart from cutting corn from the corn-fields in the outskirts of Chiang Mai that was meant to supplement the elephants' diet, we also collected elephant poo from the shacks that housed the elephants. The poo was meant to be transported to poo factories that made commercial items like notepads and books.

We also supported the Park in other activities such as collecting bamboo and concrete meant for the expansion of the Park's facilities.

Planting teak-tree seedlings was fun! We spent a couple of days transporting seedlings from the nursery and planting them at selected locations along the Park. These trees will one day provide shelter and food for the elephants.

This is part of a reforestation campaign to restore the natural habitats of these elephants since the rapid deforestation and urbanisation was a contributing factor to the decline of the elephant population in Thailand.

We spent 4 days at a Karen village that was supported by the Park. Recognising that promoting the welfare of the hill-tribes was part and parcel of preserving the eco-system involving nature and the elephant population, the Park launches many initiatives to preserve the cultural identity and welfare of these hill-tribes.

Our team sponsored the building of a well, and worked with the villages to dig the well at a site that was once a swamp consisting of a sludge pool of mud and rotting vegetation. Getting knee-deep into the mud, hacking at the ground with shovels and pick-axes, and involving the entire team to transport buckets of sludge from the well-site was simply draining but memorable.

Of course, the villagers were also exceptional hosts, always cooking and providing the best accomodation for us. They truly lived up to their reputation as a generous and welcoming people.

That's the well that was shaping up by the second day of our digging. We had to transport sand, stones and cement from outside the village, mix them into cement, and transfer the materials into the well. By the end of the third day, the villagers had taken over the project and adding their finishing touches to the well.

We also visited a nearby village school that served students from the nearby villages. We were thankful to have collected boxes of stationery, toys, paper and biscuits for the kids from our collection drives in Singapore, contributions from two secondary schools, and sponsors like Pilot and Blessings in a Bag.

That's the satisfied team with the adorable kids. What better way to mark the end offour stay at the village by putting a smile on the kids' faces with our gifts and the many games we played with them? Simply priceless and worth all the effort.

So what's in store for the team and the project? We have our work cut out for us for the months ahead where we plan to:

• Work with our school's corporate communications office to create footages of the project meant for Channel News Asia to showcase the Park's work, details of our project, and our experience as a team.

• Organise a photo-essay exhibition and have it in either SMU or the National Library (or even both!). This will cap our post-expedition project of increasing publicity for what the Park does, and educating the people on the pertinent issues of elephant and nature conservation

• Have a final debriefing and official gathering for the team where we remember our work and the great times we have experienced together as a team

• Start planning with the leaders of the next ENP project! We will review our strategic branding, processes, target audiences and such. More importantly, we will see how we can ensure the continuity and sustainability elements of the project, such as the idea of the social business that the school intends to start to market products made by the constituents of organisations like ENP