GIBBON REHABILITATION PROJECT
EDUCATION PROGRAM
PROGRESS REPORT
Bang PaeWaterfall, Phuket Island, Thailand
General overview
To enable us to work efficiently on the issue of education we have set up a specific working group of volunteers and Thai staff, headed by our new Thai education officer, who, as well as their other duties at the project dedicate a period of time each week to the planning and organizing of education programs.
The programs that we have been running this year have been extensive and varied. They range from grass root strategies of building vital communication links between us and the local community in which we work, to school visits and open education days. Many of these programs are new and some are still being evaluated or improved upon. All the education materials used have been specifically designed for different age and cultural group, this has enabled us to ensure that the message we want to get across is easily absorbed by the target audience.
The following is a list of specific projects we have been working on over the last year.
And some of the results we have achieved.
1) The local community
We have produced information sheets and monthly news letters in Thai, these are posted in local village squares and meeting houses and inform the villagers around us of the activities and progress of the project. We feel that building a firm and continuous relationship with the local community will go a long way to ensure the future success of the project. If the local community understand the work we do and support it they will help us in many ways such as educating their children to providing us with goods at a cheaper rate. We have also held information evenings where we listen to the concerns of the local people about not only the work we do but the conservation issues that effect them on a personal level as well as the community one. We try to answer as many of their concerns as we can and refer them to other bodies on matters that we can not help with. So far we have found this to be a great success, more of the local residents speak to volunteers on a day to day basis and we have received offers of help on many different levels, such as moving equipment that is too big for our trucks, physical help with the building of new cages and reduced prices for bulk orders in local hardware shops and food markets as well as local people offering themselves as volunteers and staff. We have also noticed a greater awareness of the issue of conservation and the problems faced by the local wildlife in general.
2) School visits
Our schools program has been running for some time now, we are actively involved with three large international schools with children of all age ranges coming from many different countries. We have 7 local primary and secondary schools which we visit on a regular basis as well as colleges and universities further afield. The schools program consists of Thai staff and volunteers visiting schools and presenting workshops and seminars, question and answer sessions, games and activities as well as the students visiting our information centre at Bang Pae Waterfall to see the work we do and learn more about the issues of conservation as a whole. We have received a wonderful response from the schools, the teachers have given us an incredible amount of feed back, the children have written us poems, letters and even in one case produced a play about what they learned with us. They have made us posters to put around our tour area and many of them have come back to see us independently from the school, bring their parents and with them making them give donations. Although the schools program is the one in which we have experienced the most difficulties, it is certainly one of the most immediately rewarding. Some of the difficulties we face are fitting the subject of Thai wildlife and specifically the gibbons into the curriculum currently used in the local schools, communication between volunteers and the Thai children and the sheer amount of time and staffing levels needed for the education days. However the results we have achieved to date far out strip the problems we face.
3) Production of literature
On a more basic level we have produced a series of new information leaflets, posters and products. Each one has been designed to target a specific groups such as, tourists visiting our information centre, large international and local companies, schools and universities, hotels and guest houses, international and national tour groups and colleges and universities abroad. These items have enabled us to advertise the project for the recruitment of volunteer staff as well as raising the issues concerning the gibbons in Thailand to a wide range of groups that would otherwise not hear of us. The leaflets are distributed in a variety of ways.
We as volunteers go to large towns and tourist areas handing out leaflets with basic information on and a map of how to get to our centre, we also put these in hire cars and at the airport. The color brochures are given to tourist information booths and travel agents across the island as well as being used in schools, a larger caller brochure and sponsorship package is posted to national and international companies based in Thailand on a regular basis. The use of these brochures is very new so we are still evaluating the received responses. However at the present time we are a little disappointed in the feedback coming in.
4) Improvements to the Information Centre
Recently we have made vast improvements to the look and presentation of the information we give at our tour area at the Waterfall site. The structure of the huts were strengthened and cosmetically improved, we redesigned the information boards and translated all text into Thai and the new viewing platform we made can hold more people and is higher than the last one enabling people to see more of the gibbons without disturbing the animals. It will take time and a survey to find out if these improvements will make a difference to the visitors that come to see us, we have already designed a questionnaire to establish what the visitors think about the tour we give, the information on display and the feel of the centre as a whole, we expect to be able to start evaluating this feedback within the next 4 months.
5) Promotional trips
We have designed and had made two stands for promotional outings. With these we hope to get out into towns and local communities on a more regular basis. One is designed to be used in super markets and tourist offices etc. It can be left unmanned and displays basic information on what the project does and where to find us. The other is a larger and more comprehensive set of boards that can be used at fairs and festivals with a donation box and display table for the products we sell. Since the making of these stands we have only been able to use them once or twice but the response on both occasions was very good. There are many things we can do over the next 6 months to improve on what has already been started given the right amount of long term volunteers and dedicated education staff.
At the present time 90% of the education program work is being carried out by short term volunteers in the evenings after a long days work.
Given a dedicated team of long term volunteers or preferably permanently employed education staff the situation would vastly improve. We would be able to dedicate more time and energy to the subject and get better results more quickly.
Over the next year
We will continue to work as I have stated above and work to improve on these and other areas. We have achieved a great deal in both education within the local community and with the general presentation of the project. Through the surveys we have already authored and others which are in the process of being designed we hope to get a clearer view of the long term needs of the education programs at the gibbon rehabilitation project.
This is what we should be doing now.
