Not just elephants...

Apart from our work with our elephants, some of the other responsibilities we have as being a part of MEF, range from picking up other elephants poo, to teaching English to kids. As a foundation that is quite invested in the community here, myself and the other volunteers help by taking part in some of these other activities. On any day during the week, we may be asked to participate in the following.

'Poo Run'
Next door to MEF is a poo paper facotry where they use elephant dung and recycled paper to create new paper. The outcome is actually really cool, and you would have no idea what the ingredients were if you didnt know. Everyday, two people are on 'poo run' which means taking between 2 and 5 wheelbarrows full of elephants dung (collected from around the estate) to the factory. It can be a bit of a messy job but it's a great workout.

Teaching
Every afternoon, from Monday to Thursday, MEF runs an after school program for local kids and adults. The program is held at two seperate locations,  both of which are houses/backyards near by, and are open to anyone who through word-of-mouth want to learn English. We usually fill the hour of time with outdoor games, flashcards, Bingo, memory and cover topics from fruits to body parts to shapes.

Millennium Elephant Foundation Resource Centre Resource Centre is slightly more structured, is a 2-hour time period and similarly to Teaching,  is an after school program, runs Monday to Thursday and is designed to help students with English. The kids range in age from 4 to 14 and though we cover topics like fruits, shapes, sports, etc., they're more focused on spelling, practicing writing them out and sentence structure.

Gardening
Here at MEF we have a very extensive garden that unfortunately hasn't seen any rain water for WEEKS, which makes us busier with it. Everything grown in the garden is used in our meals, or to feed the elephants. We have cucumbers, bananas, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, cabbage, corn, beans, pumpkin, cinnamon trees, mango trees, Jack fruit trees (which is my newfound favorite fruit...tastes like candy!) peppercorn bushes, pineapple bushes, mint and a list of herbs I won't go into. I'm sure I've missed a few things but you get the idea! The group of us here work in rotations to make sure 3 people are out watering the garden every afternoon, weeding and sometimes planting.

Sunera Foundation Every month, the MEF sponsors an afternoon with the Sunera Foundation in Kandy. Once a week, a group from Sunera get together for an afternoon of singing,  dancing and acting, with each afternoon holding a different sponsor. As we sponsor once a month, a group of us gets to go and take part. I was lucky enough last week to get to go along and was I ever happy I did. After the work I've done with Best Buddies in Toronto and SMILE at Acadia, I was really excited to have the chance to meet and interact with this group. They ranged in age, carried different forms of mental or physical disabilities but they were all equally as happy and excited to have this afternoon of fun. We were dancing, and laughing and they even let us watch a few rehearsals of a play they'd been working on. What I loved best about Best Buddies and SMILE and found after spending time with Sunera is apart from the huge impact you know you're making on them, the impact I feel from it is just as a great and it can't help you feel anything but pure joy when you see and know the struggles they face everyday yet the positivity and smiles that beam out of them from beginning to end. http://www.sunerafoundation.org/