Submitted by The EU Switch Asia Luang Prabang-Handle with Care project
The EU Switch Asia Luang Prabang-Handle with Care project implemented by GIZ, Travelife for Tour Operators and Human Elephant Learning Programs Foundation (H-ELP) would like to invite you to participate in the “Elephant Friendly Mahout Training Workshop” at the Elephant Village sanctuary & resort in Luang Prabang from 14th until the 17th of October 2018. We feel honored to host Dr. Andrew McLean, Dr. Portland Jones and their team of trainers from Australia who will be the instructors during these days.
The EU Switch Asia Luang Prabang Handle with Care project is working together with Travelife for Tour Operators to help local elephant camps to improve the animal welfare standard of their properties. Laos is generally more responsible and offers better conditions for domesticated elephants than other countries. We believe that tourism can play a positive role in improving the conditions of captive elephants, and support the objectives of H-ELP.
H-ELP Foundation was founded in 2010, with the goal of raising the standard of training for Captive Elephants. H-ELP believes that the traditional way of training elephants can be improved by understanding elephants and their natural behavior. H-ELP Foundation’s mission is to take care of the welfare of elephants, which crucially also includes taking care of the mahouts that closely live and work with them every day. Dr. Andrew McLean is an expert in training horses and elephants based on a psychological and scientific method. He was one of the founders of H-ELP and has been working with captive elephants for more than ten years. He has experience in training mahouts in elephant camps in Nepal, Laos, India, Myanmar and Thailand. He believes that training elephants without using punishment, pain or fear will ensure that traditional training elephants in captivity may be sustained.
We invite up to four mahouts per Lao elephant camp to participate in the training. The workshop does not require any registration fee. Attendees living outside of Luang Prabang province will be provided with accommodation funded by this project. EU Switch Asia Luang Prabang Handle with Care has engaged the services of Aline van der Meulen, Travelife for Tour Operators auditor for the elephant camp animal welfare standard to coordinate this and upcoming activities.
The training will start at Sunday 14th of October. We will leave by minivan from Luang Prabang to the training venue at the Elephant Village at 08.00 am. The minivans will be waiting for us right in front of Wat Mano. The training day will usually end around 4-5 pm.
Please send a reply before the 11th of October. Please inform us about the name of your organization, the names of the mahouts that will participate, their phone number(s), and if the attendee(s) require a specific diet of suffer from any food allergy.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Aline van der Meulen at 020-55812337 or via whatsappnumber +94 769427888 or via email at alinevandermeulen@gmail.com.