Elephant Village Initiative

This was my fourth and final trip with Global Leadership Adventures. After traveling to Costa Rica, the Galapagos and the Dominican Republic with GLA, I was thrilled to finally be going to Thailand. The local staff was amazing and I learned so much about Thai culture. Working with elephants every day was an experience rivaled by none. After spending a few days in the city of Chiang Mai, we finally headed off to the village where the Elephant Conservation center was. We woke up very early every day to clean up after the elephants and bathe them, a surprisingly enjoyable task. We also participated in other service activities such as planting trees, teaching english in schools, and cutting and planting grass (the food for the elephants). I really was not sure what to expect as this was my first time traveling to Asia. But now that I have spent two weeks there and met so many wonderful people, all I can think about is going back. I was in the first group of the program so we acted sort of as the guinea pigs for what service work activities would work the best. We also were given the chance to help cook at the conservation center. We were assigned a day to cook dinner and we learned how to prepare an official Thai dish. I have a million wonderful things to say about this program, and I couldn't be happier with my experience. I was really able to discover my love for learning about other cultures, and my love for preserving species. We engaged in meaningful discussions about animal rights, and how one person can make a change (a discussion started by our mentor Ash Hastings). I cannot recommend Global Leadership Adventures enough, it is such a wonderful program.