Rescue & Protect Sea Turtles in Thailand and Asia

Dear Supporters,

Last time I told you about a fundraising event we were about to undertake: The Amazing Scavenger Race. Well, it happened—and wow was it a success!

Honestly, the best part about the fundraiser may have been the amount of fun we had! All the teams, geared up in their shark-themed costumes, made quite a sight racing around our village and the nearby towns, stopping for photos or to lip synch a song or show off their best dance moves. The villagers here weren’t quite sure what to think, but laughed and took photos with us anyway. We had so many people asking what was going on and were able to talk to them about shark conservation. Some of those people we talked to were so impressed that they gave us donations of the money they had in their pockets!

With your donations, and those received privately, we were able to raise over 101,000 Thai Baht. That’s around £2,000 and $3,100. It’s a lot even by our Western standards and here in Thailand, that money can go so much further!

 Here’s what we’ve done so far with the money raised:

•  We were able to give a direct donation to our partners, Shark Guardian, to cover their daily running costs, often forgotten expenses like printing and paper, electricity, phone bills and fuel. Shark Guardian is a non-profit, volunteer organisation and the founders commit almost 100% of their time to the cause. So us being able to give them 50,000 Baht is incredibly beneficial. 
• We’re continuing to distribute poster sets. Shark Guardian is doing the majority of the work during our low season, as they travel around to locations that are currently in high season. They just sent an email saying they were out of the 30 sets we gave them only a few months ago! It’s fantastic to know there are another 30 shops with our posters displayed, getting the word out there about diving with whale sharks in a way that doesn’t alter their natural behaviors.

Coming up, we’re very excited about an idea that’s been brainstormed during our weekly beach cleans. Plastic bags-they’re everywhere! We have helped to soften this environmental disaster by imposing a small fee on our volunteers every time they bring a plastic bag or Styrofoam box back, but all the villagers still use and dispose of the plastic bags.

That’s why we’ll be using some of the funds raised to purchase reusable canvas bags, with shark conservation designs added. We’ll be making informational posters and taking those and a supply of reusable bags around to the local shops and asking that they distribute the reusable bags and discourage the use of plastic bags. We’re very excited about helping out our shark friends, and all the ocean creatures, by decreasing the number of floating plastic bags in their home. Bags are often mistaken for jellyfish or other delicious snacks and unknowingly chomp down on. If you’ve got any great design ideas, feel free to send them our way!

Thank you, as always, for your continued support of us and our shark friends. We hope you’ll be swimming along on our journey with us as we continue to work with Shark Guardian and other local initiatives.

In the meantime, I challenge all of your to decrease your plastic bag use as well and invest in a cute canvas bag. Send us snaps of you conserving the environment and we’ll add them to the next update! Email us at thailandbase@gviworld.com.

With Gratitude, 

GVI- Phang Nga and the sharks of southern Thailand

Links:

• The Charitable Trust
• Like us on Facebook
• Volunteer with us

Hello Donors and Friends,

We’re in the middle of a very exciting time on the shark conservation project. By the time this goes to print, we’ll have finished our first big fundraising event. (Hopefully just the first of many!)

It’s called “The Amazing Scavenger Race,” and it’s a competitive photo scavenger hunt around Ban Nam Khem, where we’re based, and the nearby towns of Bang Niang and Khao Lak.Volunteers are split into groups, each led by a GVI staff member and each group is given riddles, clues and tasks to accomplish in the set time frame. It’s a long, hot day, and no easy task, especially as teams aren’t allowed to use private transportation. That walk from the Koh Kho Khao pier to the ancient ruins is no joke, and hopefully all the teams treat themselves to an ice cream stop when they’ve finished!

Each team has a shark mascot and will style their team name, flag, and chant from their shark. Their shark can also inspire costumes for the day (don’t worry, those pictures will surface after the event!). For now, here are a few of the event organisers, staff members Maggie & Joe, doing a dry run of the day to iron out kinks (checking items off the list such as a ferry ride across the channel, a frangipani flower, and a team shot with our driver Thit).

The day comes to a close at one of our favourite restaurants, with a celebration and prizes awarded. I’ll let you know how much we raised in our next report, but at writing, only 1 week in, we’ve already raised about 500 pounds across all our fundraising platforms. I know that number is going to have sky-rocketed by the time we’ve finished our fundraiser, and I’m so thankful to all of our donors, old and new, who have contributed to that!

We’ve been extremely successful with our whale shark diving Code of Conduct posters—they’ve been distributed locally as well as in Phuket, and this coming season will see them in the diving destinations of Koh Tao and Koh Lanta, as well as in some of the tour companies near our home. However, the poster campaign will be put on hold during the low season when the majority of the dive shops are closed.

In the meantime, we’ll be working with Shark Guardian as they embark on a more emphatic phase of their movement to rid restaurant menus of shark fin soup. Shark finning is a huge problem, and such a senseless waste of such amazing creatures and we’re very keen to help out with this campaign as much as possible.

Much of the money raised will be donated to Shark Guardian for their running costs, as they also run purely on volunteers, like travel costs to presentations, merchandise printing, and new marketing materials for the shark fin soup campaign. The remainder of the funds will stay with us to prepare for jumping back into the whale shark poster campaign. Stay tuned for updates on both campaigns, as well as information about the shark finning “industry” and how you can help.

Thanks, as always, for your continued support.

Sincerely,

GVI Phang Nga

Links:

• The Charitable Trust