MAHOUTS

General information

UK registered charity dedicated to improving welfare for captive working Asian elephants.

www.mahouts.org

Who we are;

We are a family; Sarah, Felix, Joe and Natasha. We have spent a lot of our time over the past four years with domesticated Elephants in Thailand. Both in a sanctuary environment and in working trekking camps. We have been particularly involved with Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary.

In turn this has also led us to spend time in other trekking camps. We have very close friends who are Mahouts and try very hard to the best they can with what they have available to them.

Through our involvement and whilst on a trip in December 2012 we crossed paths with Somsri, a beautiful and very wise Elephant, she was in her 70s and had led a very difficult life. Her owners at the time had only had her for a matter of months and she had spent many weeks of this time at the Elephant clinic in Surin. Before this she had been a street begging Elephant in Hua Hin.

When we met her she was dangerously thin and exhausted amongst many other problems. Her tough life had more than caught up with her and we knew we had to help her. Following an email to Katherine Connor at BLES it was agreed that the funds should be raised for her to live out her days in dignity and peace at BLES.

I went to accompany Somsri on her long journey and was thrilled to share this trip with not only Katherine and her amazing team but also Louise Rogerson, founder of EARS.

Somsri lived her life to the full that first day, she did everything she could and it seemed as though she was living her whole life in one day. Her time at BLES was sadly very short, she was a very sick Elephant and she soon ended up at the hospital in Lampang. It was here that she passed away, but she was so peaceful and so veryhappy surrounded by Katherine and her family; ……. Completely covered in a blanket of love in her last days.

We can’t believe that her time of freedom was so short, she understood everything that was happening to her and after a lifetime spent in chains she cherished those weeks of freedom with every breath she took. I believe she would want us to do as much as we can to help others just like her.

So in Somsris memory we have set up our Mahouts Foundation; this has been a dream of ours for years, but it feels now is right time.

Why we are needed;

The one thing that stays with me is an overwhelming sadness at the life Somsri has had to endure and so many of Thailand’s Elephants are living this life day in day out.

The conditions in the camps throughout the tourist areas in Thailand vary greatly. Elephants spend many long hours on short chains; they often have a poor diet. They receive little or no regular health checks and this leads onto problems such as poor foot care. They often have no access to a pond for bathing in. Some camps run shows that the Elephants are trained to perform tricks for tourists, they often end up begging on the streets or on the beaches. Baby Elephants are taken at a very young age from their Mothers and trained often in a very harsh way to perform tricks for money from tourists. The list of problems is endless ……..

There are camps that are slowly trying to change, running much more low impact tourism. They are learning that maybe this is what tourists now want ……. Just to see Elephants enjoying their lives in a more natural environment. We want to harness this ideal and make it work across the tourist areas of Thailand. To change things little by little to improve the lives of these working Elephants. This problem is not going away any time soon, but we can try and make things better.

Our goals;

To promote responsible and low impact tourism. To encourage tourists to only visit sanctuaries or projects that share in our vision of the Elephants being at the heart of every decision to ensure they are treated with respect and kindness.

To develop an education programme to educate and raise awareness to the problems facing these Elephants. We want to raise awareness to all age groups but have particular plans to go into schools in the UK.

To work with camps and Mahouts in tourist areas and beyond to develop models of responsible tourism that helps the Mahouts to develop and feel in control of their lives. To enable them to earn a decent wage whilst nurturing an understanding of the Elephants needs.

To assist with the development of projects; trying to make a difference by fundraising and assisting with new projects, such as building bathing areas for the Elephants, new buildings, providing medical care, purchasing land or anything else that is seen to help the Elephants.

To continue to fundraise for Boon Lott’s Elephant sanctuary, to help them achieve their goals towards the release project and the Star medical clinic and indeed any other projects they may have.

To assist in more rescues like Somsri. We feel there will be more Elephants just like her in the coming years who will need to find sanctuary and we will be there for them.

To do our very best; we have amazing people helping us directly in this work and we will work alongside other organisations to achieve our goals.