Gearing up 4 Gorillas Visit Animal Friends
Tuesday, 1 November 2011 10:40
We here at Animal Friends believe in helping animal welfare organisations around the world by donating large amounts of our profits to aid charities with their conservation and education efforts. One such organisation is Gearing up 4 Gorillas, a marvellous UK charity that focuses on the conservation of the mountain gorilla living in Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The mountain gorilla is critically endangered with only around 700 thought to be left in existence, around 200 of which are thought to reside in Virunga National Park.
Animal Friends has been a strong supporter of GU4G over the years and a few months back we donated £5,000 to help fund a pedal powered cinema, part of the great ape film initiative. This system is excellent in that it enables the children of the remote local schools and villages to watch educational films about the mountain gorilla, simply by pedalling a bicycle. Most of these children will never have seen a film as there is no electricity in and around where they live and so this scheme truly is fantastic.
On Friday 28th October, Linda Nunn, one of GU4G’s volunteers, brought the pedal powered cinema in to Animal Friends HQ in order to show us how it worked and let us experience the system for ourselves first hand. After helping to set up the equipment, the Animal Friends staff had a chance to use it and test our stamina levels. Taking it in turns to ride the bicycle, we all watched a short conservation film about the mountain gorilla and it really was heart-warming to realise that 75,000 children in over 100 schools would be able to see a film for the very first time all thanks to this pedal-powered system.
Daniel Grant, our Charity Coordinator, organised the visit and had this to say about the wonderful experience:
“The cinema is fantastic; to see first-hand where our donations go and what can be achieved is amazing. For a project so simple to have such a lasting effect in a remote part of the world is truly heart-warming. The potential outreach of the cinema to thousands of children and villagers can only improve awareness and conservation of animal welfare which we at Animal Friends are huge supporters of”
Linda was delighted that we hold such an interest in GU4G’s work and gave us this feedback:
“Thank you to all at Animal Friends. You are all just such a lovely bunch of people; it was great to meet you all. I only hope the staff’s legs there aren't aching too much......”
Everyone at Animal Friends thoroughly enjoyed Gearing up 4 Gorilla’s visit and we will continue to support them with the superb work they do in trying to sustain the limited population of the mountain gorilla.
