Hi everybody!

I have been volunteering at the Millenium Elephant Foundation in Sri Lanka for a month, to help improve the life of captive elephants. We currently have 7 of them at MEF and, although everybody would rather see these beautiful animals free in the wild, it is unfortunately impossible as they spent most of their life in man's company, sometimes as a temple elephant, sometimes for the benefit of logging or touristic industries. So MEF is very much about making their captive life better and providing them with everything they need. Tourists can come and have elephant rides/showers, leran about them and support the charity.

There's always a bunch of volunteers helping out here, and each one is assigned an elephant, that he will take care of by assisting his mahout (keeper). My elephant is Raja. He is the largest of all, one of the two tuskers at MEF and an incredibly beautiful living thing. He is also a temple elephant, and as such, sacred and forbidden of any contact with women. Raja is very intimidating and used to be temperamental but became quite docile with time, although the situation is a bit complicated with his mahout. Every day, I get to wash him, clean his bed, administrate his medicine (he currently has a pneumonia), take care of his food, and admire him. Moreover, many different other activities take place every day at MEF that all contribute to enrich the animals' (and volunteers') life.

Very soon,I will climb Adam's Peak, one of the highest mountain in the country, to raise money for the Freedom Fence project. Once the fence will be built, the elephants will be able to roam freely and socialize on MEF's grounds, instead of being chained all the time. However, this is a costly project that needs to be sponsored. I already organised a raffle that brought together 200$. Now, I need your help to reach my fundraising target and allow the Freedom Fence to be built. Follow me on Adam's Peak and make the elephants happy!