Manchester January 2012
We have just completed the induction of our second EU funded group in Manchester and will be sending 14 fired up young Brits to Tenerife at the weekend to develop and then run a whole range of projects around the world during 2012, whilst gaining experience running volunteer programmes on the whale watching boats, research guiding. Everyone is very excited!
The previous, first, group was somewhat of a disappointment in that only three carried forward. Luke is now our Director of both Research and of Volunteer Fundraising with additional responsibilities for developing projects in the Caribbean and South America this year; Jason will be out building business units in Sierra Leone in March and subsequently in Sri Lanka, with Berdie, building eco lodges and our first Field Study Centre; and Lewis will be in Sri Lanka from April setting up our bird volunteering/ eco-tourism programmes in the region.
The idea behind this particular EU programme is to give participants thirteen weeks work experience in Tenerife, research guiding on the whale watching boats building up experience helping to run a conservation project whilst allowing them time, space and facilities to focus on their own careers. They get flights, accommodation and food paid for as well as a stipend each month for spending money and two skills courses- diving etc. thrown in alongside regular Spanish lessons. This, second group, has fourteen participants and we are all optimistic as to what they will achieve.
Group 2
Common to all the group are: fundraising targets; the need to create personal sustainability plans; knowledge acquisition to be presented on our web sites for the species they are working on, making them global portals for knowledge on key issues; and individual goals and strategies to achieve them- we will act as an incubator for their efforts- pushing, supporting, mentoring, facilitating, financing.
Chris, Director of AWF Creative Productions, and Stuart will drive our filming in 2012. Their initial responsibilities are to create promotional fundraising videos for our key projects- elephants, rain forest, etc. The key focus of their work in 2012 will be in helping to organise the Borneo Eco Film Festival, which the AWF is part sponsoring, and similar film festivals in London, Amsterdam and Dublin. They have a heavy schedule for the year creating documentary films in support of AWF film series- Ordinary Lives, Communities in Conservation, Eco-tourism, Conservation Issues.
Halina and Wayne will be our main co-ordinators in Asia from April and based at the elephant project in Sri Lanka, spearheading our collaboration with the MEF. Their main goal is to help make the site at Kegalle a global centre of excellence and action in the fight to save the Asian Elephant: developing our volunteer programmes there and in the region; forging collaborations to embrace other nature projects in the country- blue whale, turtle, leopard, manatee…herbs; building up our educational and trading programmes; fundraising; developing an eco-tourism infrastructure to help fund the conservation work; and, also, developing projects throughout the (Asian) region supporting the Asian Elephant. They will also be developing trading opportunities both in Sri Lanka and Vietnam. The whole year to be filmed to create a documentary showing just what can be achieved through two young passionate and committed people.
Phil this group’s ‘bird-man’ will be developing the work of Lewis, from the first group, who from April will be in Sri Lanka. In particular, Phil will be working on implementing volunteer led bird surveys in Tenerife and looking at promoting bird watching eco-tourism opportunities. He will also be expanding his remit to build database and monitoring programmes for flora on the island of Tenerife, a unique and diverse landscape sporting over 600 indigenous plant species.
Ruby is passionate about Indonesia- its people and culture, and its nature. She will be working on developing our knowledge base on species such as the Asian Rhino, Leopard, Pygmy Elephant, Orang Utan, Sun Bear, Rainforest (in relation to palm oil production), Asian Elephant. In the process she will identify good local NGOs through which the AWF can forge collaborations, and an AWF base, in Indonesia. She will also be developing trading opportunities in support of local communities as a source of funding for conservation efforts. John will be supporting Ruby as his focus is on the Asian Rhino- he will also have ambitious fundraising targets.
Lucy is going to be our whale and dolphin expert. She will develop our existing cetacean database covering species resident to and migrating through Canarian waters and expand it to cover all cetacean species. She will identify projects around the world – research, conservation and educational, that we should support and she will prioritise these efforts. She will also identify individual areas of research which, hopefully, will incorporate tagging/ DNA work on humpback whales in Sierra Leone.
Emma has a thing about cats, and big cats in particular, and, as currently we do not have projects in this area, she will be looking at the Sri Lankan leopard and at Tigers in general ( with particular reference to Vietnam). She will create a global portal of knowledge on big cats as well as identify projects that we can collaborate with and then she will develop targeted collaborations in Vietnam and Sri Lanka, (and quite possibly elsewhere as well)
Karla and Andrew are interested in wealth creation, a prime driver, in the view of the AWF, of conservation. They are particularly interested in developing our business strategies for bamboo as a product, both in creating saleable designs for physical bamboo, (garden and conservatory furniture etc.),and in developing the technical competences to convert bamboo (70:30 cotton mix) into fabric that we can then develop into fashion ranges through community driven production in the villages where we work. Andrew is also interested in event management and will be working on developing the above mentioned film festivals looking, particularly, at potential funding – EU, Lottery, Arts Council etc
Bav and Matt the graphics team and driving force behind developing out True Fair, internet trading site. Their initial goals are to brand the True Fair concept, and to develop a range of designer driven in house merchandising: T Shirts, posters, birthday calendars, greetings cards etc. plus to lead the design competition inviting designers of all ilks to submit designs for fashion ranges, bags, graphics, art work, the winners of each category to have their ranges commissioned to be sold on line with royalties going to them!! This project creates good work in the communities we work with, ensuring ethical production and respect for the environment and provides opportunities for young designers- perfect!!
John will collaborate with the Polish wolf project. The initial brief will be to create a knowledge base on the species and to identify ‘best practice’ strategies for the development of the project. He will also be set ambitious targets for both fundraising and volunteer recruitment as we endeavour to build this new project.
Watch this space!
