Help us bring Dodo home!!
Donation protected
We at Kindred Spirit Elephant Sanctuary and Foundation in Thailand are fundraising to bring another elephant into our program, returning them home to the forest to live away from a life of work and back to their natural habitat.
UPDATE!
Originally, we had planned to raise funding for one year before bringing an elephant into our program, however circumstances have changed as we have been approached by a close family member and owner of an elephant in great need of our help. From September next month, we will be bringing our fifth elephant Dodo into our program!!
DoDo is the brother of our elephant Gen Thong, nephew of Mae Doom and grandson of Too Meh. He is a young bull at 13 years old, even for a young bull he is very unpredictable, and there are very few mahouts who he respects and listens to. Due to his unpredictability, his owner and mahouts have had very little options and he has lived a hard life of constant constraint and confinement as many people have felt unsafe around him.
We have been wanting to bring Dodo into our program for some time now, but due to lack of funds and his owner being worried about how he will react to having freedom in the forest, we have been unable to secure him. Dodo has been living and working in riding camps for over 10 years, very recently he was told to leave the camp after becoming antagonized from being over worked and confined. This is when his owner approached us asking for our help, he wants to give Dodo the best life he can, whilst also ensuring that he and those around him are safe. Our co-founder Sombat and the mahouts on our program have known Dodo and gained his trust for many years, we and his owner are confident that they can provide the best care for him.
We want to reunite Dodo with his family and bring him home to live in the forest, where he will only have close contact with his mahouts and will not have any close contact with our guests or volunteers. So far we have only raised enough for his first 4 months, we need YOUR help to raise the remaining funds to keep him long term!
We currently already have 4 elephants in our care, who spend 100% of their time in the forest, roaming, foraging, socializing and just being elephants. We want to bring home as many elephants as the forest surrounding the area we work in will hold, however keeping elephants costs money, something which we as a small non-profit foundation can struggle to provide.
What are the costs of keeping an elephant?
At KSES, we do not buy our elephants for many reasons, including the demand that this creates for the illegal wildlife trade - i.e. bringing wild elephants into captivity - instead, we work WITH the local communities and pay our elephant owners a monthly compensation to keep their elephants. This monthly compensation allows our elephant owners to continue to feed their families and means that their elephants do not have to work anymore.
Through our visitor and volunteer program, as well as previous funding, we have enough funds to continue to provide for the monthly compensation for our 4 current elephants. We are fundraising to raise enough money to cover the cost of a keeping Dodo for the first year. The cost of this is outlined below (including fundraising platform fees):
The cost of keeping one elephant in the forest for 1 month is: $600USD/£469GBP
The cost of keeping one elephant in the forest for 1 year is: $7,200USD/£5628GBP
There are several ways in which YOU can help us raise the funds we need.
1. Donate to our fundraiser using the donate button to the right.
2. Set-up your own fundraiser - please do get in touch if you are interested in setting up your own event, we can provide advice and guidance.
3. Share our fundraiser with your family and friends and help us reach more people!
This fundraiser is unlike our previous fundraising attempts, as we must reach our goal. We really do need to raise these funds as quickly as possible to ensure that we can keep Dodo long term, so please do consider making a donation or get in touch if you wish to help. HELP US BRING DODO HOME!
Kindred Spirit Elephant Sanctuary is a registered Foundation in Thailand and has been active for 2 years. We really do appreciate any support big or small that can be contributed towards our elephants.
You can find out more about us, our aims and our projects on our website and facebook below:
www.kselephantsanctuary.org
www.facebook.com/kselephantsanctuary
Thank you all so much for your support.
The Kindred Spirit Elephant Sanctuary Team xx
UPDATE!
Originally, we had planned to raise funding for one year before bringing an elephant into our program, however circumstances have changed as we have been approached by a close family member and owner of an elephant in great need of our help. From September next month, we will be bringing our fifth elephant Dodo into our program!!
DoDo is the brother of our elephant Gen Thong, nephew of Mae Doom and grandson of Too Meh. He is a young bull at 13 years old, even for a young bull he is very unpredictable, and there are very few mahouts who he respects and listens to. Due to his unpredictability, his owner and mahouts have had very little options and he has lived a hard life of constant constraint and confinement as many people have felt unsafe around him.
We have been wanting to bring Dodo into our program for some time now, but due to lack of funds and his owner being worried about how he will react to having freedom in the forest, we have been unable to secure him. Dodo has been living and working in riding camps for over 10 years, very recently he was told to leave the camp after becoming antagonized from being over worked and confined. This is when his owner approached us asking for our help, he wants to give Dodo the best life he can, whilst also ensuring that he and those around him are safe. Our co-founder Sombat and the mahouts on our program have known Dodo and gained his trust for many years, we and his owner are confident that they can provide the best care for him.
We want to reunite Dodo with his family and bring him home to live in the forest, where he will only have close contact with his mahouts and will not have any close contact with our guests or volunteers. So far we have only raised enough for his first 4 months, we need YOUR help to raise the remaining funds to keep him long term!
We currently already have 4 elephants in our care, who spend 100% of their time in the forest, roaming, foraging, socializing and just being elephants. We want to bring home as many elephants as the forest surrounding the area we work in will hold, however keeping elephants costs money, something which we as a small non-profit foundation can struggle to provide.
What are the costs of keeping an elephant?
At KSES, we do not buy our elephants for many reasons, including the demand that this creates for the illegal wildlife trade - i.e. bringing wild elephants into captivity - instead, we work WITH the local communities and pay our elephant owners a monthly compensation to keep their elephants. This monthly compensation allows our elephant owners to continue to feed their families and means that their elephants do not have to work anymore.
Through our visitor and volunteer program, as well as previous funding, we have enough funds to continue to provide for the monthly compensation for our 4 current elephants. We are fundraising to raise enough money to cover the cost of a keeping Dodo for the first year. The cost of this is outlined below (including fundraising platform fees):
The cost of keeping one elephant in the forest for 1 month is: $600USD/£469GBP
The cost of keeping one elephant in the forest for 1 year is: $7,200USD/£5628GBP
There are several ways in which YOU can help us raise the funds we need.
1. Donate to our fundraiser using the donate button to the right.
2. Set-up your own fundraiser - please do get in touch if you are interested in setting up your own event, we can provide advice and guidance.
3. Share our fundraiser with your family and friends and help us reach more people!
This fundraiser is unlike our previous fundraising attempts, as we must reach our goal. We really do need to raise these funds as quickly as possible to ensure that we can keep Dodo long term, so please do consider making a donation or get in touch if you wish to help. HELP US BRING DODO HOME!
Kindred Spirit Elephant Sanctuary is a registered Foundation in Thailand and has been active for 2 years. We really do appreciate any support big or small that can be contributed towards our elephants.
You can find out more about us, our aims and our projects on our website and facebook below:
www.kselephantsanctuary.org
www.facebook.com/kselephantsanctuary
Thank you all so much for your support.
The Kindred Spirit Elephant Sanctuary Team xx
Organizer
Kerri McCrea
Organizer