You may or may not be aware that MyHoliday2 run a ‘Give Back’ initiative, where for each package sold, we donate $2 of our profit to a charity or organisation of that country. For example, for every holiday to Borneo we sell, we donate $2 to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. This $2 may not seem a lot, but we have met with these charities personally and send the cheques direct to them. Not a single cent gets caught up in “administration fees”.
On a recent trip to Borneo we met with the Officer-In-Charge of Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre, Mdm Sylvia Alsisto. She and the orphaned orangutans are very grateful for MyHoliday2’s contribution to the centre and we were lucky enough to get a back-stage tour of Sepilok! She explained that the baby orangutans are very cute and very lucky to receive many donations from around the world, through adoption, volunteering and charity, but we need to help the elephants too.
Over the last year or so, the Sepilok Rangers have come across distressed and orphaned baby pygmy elephants and taken them under their wing. They now have 5 baby pygmy elephants and have changed their name to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre and Wildlife Rescue Unit. Sylvia was telling us that they need a lot more support in order to care for these orphans, “They just drink so much milk!” she explained. You can imagine how much milk a baby can drink, these are baby elephants! In Malaysia, milk is quite expensive and although they are babies, they are still elephants and the Wildlife Rescue Unit is struggling to keep up with their feeding. The sad part is, if they don’t get enough money through donations they will have to release the babies back into the wild and who know’s what will happen to them. The team are so very passionate about the animals, it is not something they even want to consider.
So, to do our part (however small it may be) we now donate to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre AND Wildlife Rescue Unit to help give the orphaned baby pygmy elephants (how cute does that sound?!) the milk they need.