For 2 nights, volunteers and staff took part in our annual Sleep Out Challenge in order to raise funds for The GVI Trust. These funds are used to help support 3 of our elephants to continue living naturally in the forest.
Helping to return more elephants to the forest is one of the long term aims for GVI Chiang Mai. Through the support of The GVI Trust, we are currently able to support 9 elephants living in a natural environment in the forest. Our lovely mahouts joined volunteers, interns and staff for our 2 night jungle sleep out to raise funds for our 3 elephants; Khum Suk, Sah Jah and Lulu.
During the sleep out the volunteers and interns were split into different teams and throughout the 3 days, were tasked with cooking different meals for the rest of the group. As we were cooking in the forest, the volunteers also had to source natural materials to use, such as bamboo which was used as an alternative to plates and also to boil the water and to cook the food.
Each morning, we woke and ate breakfast with the mahouts before hiking out to see the elephants who were near the campsite. In the afternoons, we would return to camp to eat together again and then take part in other activities such as a scavenger hunt. The volunteers were once again put into their teams and were given a set amount of time to find as many different species as possible before returning back to camp to see who had won. During the afternoons everybody took the opportunity to explore the area in which we were camped and as we were close to a river, many people would shower there to cool off for the day! In the evenings, all the teams joined back up again and would cook dinner, with the mahouts helping out after watching us struggle!
Although the conditions in the forest were very basic, everybody had a great time and the challenge was made much easier knowing that our friends and family were donating to help keep our beautiful elephants where they belong!
We surpassed our target of £2000, raising an incredible total of £2,135.84! Thank you to everyone who supported us!
Written by: GVI Chaing Mai Base Manager Danielle Riley
