Peter Nena
There is a woman from Thailand named Lek Chailert who has dedicated her life to rescuing tortured elephants. She grew up in a small hillside village north of Chiang Mai where large scale logging was practised. Elephants were used by loggers to transport incredibly heavy loads.
When she was a student, Lek used to see the elephants cut and wounded and sick, and she sought to find out what was happening to them. She could hear elephants screaming in the forest but, being a student, was not allowed to go into the logging camp. One day she was taken into the forest by one of the elephant keepers, and that was when she witnessed the shocking horror of what was happening to them. The horror that would change her life.
There was an elephant hauling a log up the hill with a man riding on its back. Every time the elephant tried to haul the log, the man would step on a hook on its head and wound it, drawing blood. The man was also cutting its back with a knife. It was screaming.
Lek was speechless. It was her first time to see the giant animal tortured so badly by human beings. Shaken, she went back to the village for elephant medicine and came back to treat the wounded animal.
The elephants were used not only for logging but also for entertainment in circuses and tourist parks.
Baby elephants were put in a structure called “crush box”, which is a small, rigid trap with no room for turning around. They were then beaten and tortured mercilessly until they learned to obey their human masters. Afterwards, they were taken to the circuses for entertainment, obeying commands, playing with hoops, or being ridden by tourists in tourist parks for a fee, etc.
Lek wondered why humans expected so much from the animals. She made it her mission to rescue them. She went to the media and exposed the loggers. She founded Save Elephant Foundation.
An American actress, Ashley Bell, heard about her work and joined her. They have since worked together on a documentary called Love and Bananas about the rescued elephants and the ordeals they went through.
The animals she has saved are very grateful and when they see her they run to her and cuddle her.
Lek’s rich story can be found here.
Lek Chailert, BBC
This is the 17th celebration of the WE ARE THE WORLD BLOGFEST #WATWB which is carried out every last Friday of the month, and which aims to spread love and positiveness in this vulnerable world. A celebration of heroes who can still restore our faith in humanity, especially in this period when our world seems to be full of endless series of horrible happenings.
Our generous co-hosts for this month are: Shilpa Garg, Eric Lahti, Inderpreet Uppal, Sylvia Stein and myself..
To sign up for We Are The World Blogfest, please see the guidelines below.
~~~GUIDELINES~~~
- Keep your post to below 500 words, as much as possible.
- All we ask is you link to a human news story on your blog on the last Friday of each month, one that shows love, humanity, and brotherhood. Something like this news about a man who only fosters terminally ill children.
- Join us on the last Friday of each month in sharing news that warms the cockles of our heart. No story is too big or small, as long as it goes beyond religion and politics, into the core of humanity.
- Place the WE ARE THE WORLD Badge on your sidebar, and help us spread the word on social media. Tweets, Facebook shares, G+ shares using the #WATWB hashtag through the month most welcome. More Blogfest signups mean more friends, love and light for all of us.
- We’ll read and comment on each others’ posts, get to know each other better, and hopefully, make or renew some friendships with everyone who signs on as participants in the coming months.
- To signup, add your link in WE ARE THE WORLD Linky List
Demogorgon's Fiction 