Wild Welfare launches workshop in Laos
Wild Welfare worked in partnership with Free the Bears to deliver the programme.
Wild Welfare, an international animal welfare charity, has expanded its programme into Laos. The organisation launched an in-person edition of its Wild About Welfare digital education programme.
Laos is a new country of operation for Wild Welfare, and the organisation collaborated with Free the Bears, a charity that rescues bears from bear bile farms and the illegal wildlife trade to deliver the workshop.
The first workshop was held in Luang Prabang in November 2022, and the five-day course saw a mix of participants; veterinary surgeons, animal care staff and higher managers from Free the Bears and a local elephant sanctuary.
Taught in both English and spoken Lao translations, the workshop lasted for five days, and introduced participants to take part in practical tasks, including enclosure assessments for macaques and enrichment planning for different species.
Sarah Bonser-Blake, animal welfare field manager at Wild Welfare, discussed the programme: “It was quite an emotional experience for me seeing everyone really engaging with the content. There was a real sense of learning together as everyone helped each other out with explanations, translations and concepts which might be difficult to understand.”
This workshop was the first practical roll-out of the programme, and Wild Welfare will use the feedback to continue its development.
Online, the Wild About Welfare course is free-to-access on Wild Welfare's website, and it has seen use from 63 different countries since it's launch in January 2021.
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