The COVID - 19 pandemic has brought us many challenges, the most difficult has been a complete stop overnight to our guest bookings. We had a summer fully booked with International school groups, guests and own own study abroad field course. This has caused a huge loss in revenue and also is a shock to the LIFE community who were developing and adapting so well to welcoming guests to their beautiful village.

As always within the culture of the foundation we strive to turn any negative situation into a positive as we have done time and time again over the years ! We are using this time without guests to empower and promote the mahouts and community with skills they feel will be helpful for them to welcome guests.

We are running two months of English training for anyone interested, we have many in the community joining for these classes and we are thrilled that our mahouts are super keen !!! the mahouts LOVE to sit and chat to guests while they are watching the elephants, we very much promote an exchange of cultures that moves in both directions. Our guests are encouraged to learn Karen so effective communication can flow both ways.

Classes are being run by a qualified English teacher called Nyo Nyo Than who is herself from a Karen community, she speaks Karen, Thai and English so will be able to assist everyone. She is joined by an assistant called Min Min Tun who is learning to teach English. We are running small groups as everyone is shy so we will have a mahout group, children's group and and elder group, this way we can focus to these groups needs and everyone can learn at their own pace. We will then break the groups down further as we move forward for more focused learning.

EVERYONE is doing so well !!!! they are all ready to start before the teachers and are all greeting each other in English in the morning !!

This will provide the community with incredible skills for the future and empower them to lead the way in show casing THEIR culture, forest and elephants. The passion they have for the project is overwhelming and together we have overcome many obstacles to get to this point.

As a team we are always looking for innovative and creative ways to harness this passion and we are blown away at the promising start of these English lessons.

We would lOVE you to be involved with this and help us with a donation, small or large this will help us to cover the costs of the teachers and equipment needed.

Thank you so much for being part of our journey, from the whole team at Mahouts Elephant Foundation - founded on patience and peace and built through hard work and trust.

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