TULUS INVITE THE PUBLIC AND CHILDREN TO BE #TEMANGAJAH
By: Natalia Trita Agnika
Singer Tulus' interaction with Sumatran elephants during the making of the video clip for the song "Gajah" in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park (TNBBS) in May 2014 left a deep impression on Tulus. His love for these charismatic animals has increased. Especially when Yongki, the male elephant star of the video clip, was killed and his ivory taken, Tulus intensified his call for the preservation of Sumatran elephants through the campaign #Do Not Kill Elephants in 2016.
Now, the singer whose full name is Muhammad Tulus Rusydi is again inviting the public to care more about the preservation of Sumatran elephants in the #TemanGajah campaign. Unlike the previous campaign, #TemanGajah is carried with a warmer, lighter campaign, and invites a wider audience.
If in the previous campaign Tulus did fundraising through the sale of merchandise in the form of elephants, this time the campaign #TemanGajah was carried out by doing crowdfunding in collaboration with several parties, including kitabisa.com (digital fundraising portal), Big Chance Indonesia (business consulting company), NUSAE (design studio from Bandung), and Synchro (campaign event organizer).
The purpose of the fundraiser is to purchase 20 GPS collar satellites (location detection collars) that will be donated to WWF-Indonesia and installed on 20 groups of wild elephants in Sumatra. At the launch of the #TemanGajah campaign held at Kembang Goela Restaurant, Jakarta on Thursday (19/10), Wisnu Sukmantoro, WWF-Indonesia's Elephant Conservation Specialist explained that the installation of the GPS collar satellite will help in conducting research on Sumatran elephants so as to reduce the threats that can harm these protected animals.
The general public can become #TemanGajah and help the Sumatran Elephant conservation efforts by donating through the kitabisa.com/temangajah page. "This necklace is expensive. That's why we need to raise money together," Tulus explained to the media crew.
The donation drive through kitabisa.com was chosen because it is considered as a platform that is easily accessible to the public. CEO of kitabisa.com, M. Alfatih Timur revealed that there are currently quite a lot of people who care about the fate of animals. "We believe that good people in Indonesia still care about issues that are of interest to them. For this #TemanGajah campaign, people can directly click and can immediately donate a minimum of Rp 20,000 anywhere and anytime," he said. Pananingtyas Prabantari from Tulus Company also explained that the #TemanGajah campaign will run from October 19, 2017 until the next three months.
Adults are not the only targets of this campaign. Tulus is also getting elementary school students involved in the #TemanGajah campaign. "We feel that children really need to be socialized about the current condition of elephants," Tulus explained. Therefore, for the first phase, the campaign #TemanGajah also involves 20 elementary schools in the Jakarta area. Apart from being educated about the Sumatran elephant, the school children can also help through donation boxes that will be placed in each school for two months. Furthermore, it is possible that this campaign will invite the cooperation of other schools. Feny Wulandari, a teacher at SDN Cikini 01 Menteng, Jakarta, welcomed the campaign. "Hopefully, elephants can live more sustainably and not become extinct because it is related to our lives too. Humans and their environment must live sustainably," she said.
Tulus hopes that through this campaign the public can realize that the current condition of the Sumatran Elephant is very threatened and hopefully the donation target can be achieved. Yuk, join Tulus in becoming #TemanGajah !
