Elephant foundation rakes in Bt44 million in donations

By The Nation

 

 

The Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation have received about Bt44 million in public donations after its founder Soraida Salwala announced that the organisation was struggling due to inadequate funding. 

 

Sorada wrote on Facebook that she wished to sincerely thank everybody for their support.

 

The donations were channelled to accounts at Kasikornbank and Siam Commercial Bank. 

 

Soraida on Thursday showed in her Facebook the bank statements registering about Bt40.2 million given to the first bank and Bt4 million to the second.

 

The Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation runs the “world’s first” elephant hospital in Lampang province, which opened 25 years ago.

 

On Thai Elephants’ Day on March 13, Soraida announced that she had a health problem and that her foundation was in a financial crisis, so she had no choice but to close the hospital. The foundation had a negative balance sheet for 11 years, overspending by more than Bt2 million.

 

The foundation works in partnership with governmental and nongovernmental organisations, and the local company Elephant Parade. Many fear that if the elephant hospital closed, old and sick mammals would face an uncertain future.

 

The foundation has won recognition for its campaigns for the rights of Asian elephants and preventing the mammals from being kept in cities such as Bangkok. It is also responsible for the fulltime care of disabled elephants Motala, Mocha and Pai Bobo.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/breakingnews/30310053

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-3-23

Good News! I have met Khun Soraida a few years ago. She is an extremely brave and selfless woman, who has done amazing work on behalf of the elephants, for many years. She deserves to see her life's work to continue.

18 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

The donations were channelled to accounts at Kasikornbank and Siam Commercial Bank. 

Should be safe there unless somebody channels them out. I was rather amazed at the final figure. The milk of human kindness still flows.