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As a locally led frontline Non-profit organisation in Vietnam, we rely on our supporters, donors and volunteers who make our work possible. Without our supporters, animals would not be fed, let alone released. We wouldn’t have money to hire the truck to transport pangolins to release sites, we wouldn’t have enough medical supplies to look after animals when they come to injured and sick from the illegal wildlife trade. We wouldn’t have staff to work with communities, train rangers and lobby for law changes nationally.

As a locally led frontline Non-profit organisation in Vietnam, we rely on our supporters, donors and volunteers who make our work possible. Without our supporters, animals would not be fed, let alone released. We wouldn’t have money to hire the truck to transport pangolins to release sites, we wouldn’t have enough medical supplies to look after animals when they come to injured and sick from the illegal wildlife trade. We wouldn’t have staff to work with communities, train rangers and lobby for law changes nationally.

Today, we’d like to celebrate our supporters who raise funds for us and in the process give us hope not just for animals and conservation but for people as well. People like Alegria Olmeda who started a group called People for Pangolins and began the international ‘Pump it for Pangolins’ events that occur on World Pangolin day. Or Hattie Ashton for two years running has run bake sales to raise money for us. Or Mike Matthews who designs and sells T-shirts and donates the profits to worthy frontline organisations around the world. Buy his pangolin T-shirt- profits come to us!. One recent story of group who raised funds for us, completely touched our hearts. We saw a donation come through our Paypal system the note said from Deb Glass and her class. We always love hearing when kids get involved in conservation, so we emailed her and asked her what she did. She wrote back was inspiring for us. We learnt not only about how good people can be, but how teachers all around the world do wonderful things. Here is an edited version of what she wrote:

This is how our “Save the Pangolin” project came about.  I teach a third grade class in a mid-city school in Los Angeles, California.  Earlier in the year, the students learned about endangered animals by picking one animal each to study that was on the critically endangered species list.  They researched the animal, found out why it was critically endangered, then created a PowerPoint presentation about their findings.

They loved their project so much that I decided to extend it by creating a social justice unit for them.  I asked the students to pick a critically endangered animal that they had not already studied.  We looked at pictures of the animals on the list, and the kids picked the pangolin.  None of us had heard of it, they thought it was interesting looking, and also decided that it was cute.