Safe Educational Trails for Kids and Teachers

Unfortunately for us, there has been little support for this project. There is no progress at all to report for the last few month. We are very thankful for those of you who have supported the “trails” project, but we may have to suspend it for now. The funds you provided have been used to acquire some gravel and prepare the foundations for some of the bridges. So, those funds have been used but waiting to have more to be laid down in the trails. We greatly appreciate your trust and hope to continue the project when the conditions are better. For now, thank you very much.

Dear Friends / Amigos:

    A very important part of what we do is to educate little kids about the significance of the environment. We use puppets and hope to include field trips in the forest more regularty. We work with first grade student mainly and hope to include smaller kids just for them to get familiar with a primary forest, like the one we have in our station. But in order to take kids into the forest we need safe trails, otherwise the experience is not enjoyable for them. So, we started this funding campaign in order to build the appropriate forest trails. However, other than your support, the response has been very limited. That is why we have very little to report. We have done as much as possible with limited funding but at this moment we require more help mostly by increasing our support base. We hope you can help us with that telling your friends about this project and its significance in for conservation.  At the same time, we are very greatful of your support so far.

sincerely,

We are in the dry season, so this would have been the perfect time to build the trails and bridges. However, we have been very busy with other projects (Science teacher training) and funding has not materialise the way we hoped for. Yet, we are looking for ways to secure other funds and start building. Maybe this way we would be able to gain the attention of other possible donors. We basically know where to set the trails, because with time we have been able to establish a rudimentary path. But at this time, we have not been able to get enough funding so that we could start building the bridge foundations. The support you gave us will eventually be used to start the project one or another way. Thank you very much for your support and patience.

Much appreciated,

Dear Friends / Queridos amigos:

   We are at the end of the rainy season here in Southwestern Costa Rica. In about 2 months time we will be in the Summer of dry season. And this is the perfect time for us to work on the trails in the rain forest. So far, we have been able to lay out the trail path. Some segments are fairly flat and easy to mark, but other parts are on steep hills and harder to design. Yet, once the daily rains subside it should be a lot easier for us to work on actually building the bridges and putting the gravel along the paths. We hope to get more funding this holiday season so that by January 2017 to actually start the construction. These trails would be of great help not only to avoid innecessary erosion but mostly to facilitate research and make teaching fairly easy. And this is especially true for little kids and their teachers. Children under 7 years of age have a lot more difficulties moving around the forest and crossing little creeks. Thus, safe trails and bridges help make the entire experience more enjoyable and a positive experience for them. Your support so far has been very much appreciated and we hope to continue receving your assistance and that of other contributors that believe in training for conservation at early age.

Sincerely 

  We have most of the trail planning and designs ready. We have prepared and cleared some of the sections of the trails, but we have not been able to raise enough funding to support the actual work. We believe that a good way to familiarize small kids to the rainforest and thus develop and appreciation for nature is by making the first formal encounter in a very enjoyable manner. So, our project attempts to create the conditions for kids to get acquainted with the rain forest in the most secured and non-threatening way, by means of good and safe trails. This project is not a difficult one and we hope that more and more people would also support this project as they did our other project.

   But the reality is that it has not been easy to raise the necessary funds to continue our work. We hope that this will change in the near future and to have the trails ready by years end. Our summer takes place from December through March. And this coming Summer we are planning our first series of school teacher workshops. Hopefully, we could have at least one of the trails ready by then. As for now, thank you for supporting this project.

Sincerely,

Oscar