Woodland Park Zoo has a little slice of Thailand in their elephant habitat, complete with a village area, a model of a temple and elephants, of course. 45th Street boasts several fine Thai restaurants that can leave you with a longing to travel. But if a trip overseas isn’t in your immediate future, you can still immerse yourself in Thai culture by hosting a foreign exchange student.
Wallyhood reader Janell writes that the International Student Exchange (ISE) is seeking a host family for a 16-year-old boy from Thailand who will be attending Roosevelt High School as an exchange student next year. In addition to wishing to experience American culture as a way of gaining understanding and becoming a leader for his generation, the student plays the violin and likes the theatre, music and animals.
You don’t have to have a teenager of your own in order to qualify as a host family. If you are an empty nester or have a young family but would enjoy getting to know someone from a different culture, you may qualify to host an exchange student. ISE asks that you provide a loving home, complete with bed and meals, to exchange students. The students will pay for all other expenses and are fully insured.
For more information about hosting, please contact [email protected]. If you’d like to discuss by phone, please leave your number and the best time to reach you.
According to their website, International Student Exchange (ISE) is dedicated to the promotion of world peace and understanding by bringing together foreign teens with volunteer American host families.
I am all in support of finding hosting for a Thai teenager. I am reluctant to support the elephant exhibit at the Zoo as the elephants there desperately need to be released to sanctuary.
Bamboo, Chai and Watoto are all exhibiting symptoms that indicate great trauma and distress. Elephant experts such as Dame Daphne Sheldrick have appealed for the Woodland Park Zoo elephants to be compassionately released to sanctuary. Former Zoo director David Hancocks gave an incredibly clear and comprehensive presentation at Town Hall to support these intelligent and socially complex animals to be released to sanctuary.
Keeping these intelligent animals in a zoo means the community at large supports a level of cruelty that is unsupportable.
The Zoo has enormous resources to convince the public that abuse is not taking place in keeping these elephants in dreary circumstances. Experts on elephant care and well-being such as Dame Sheldrick, Cynthia Moss, and many others disagree with the zoo’s insistence that elephants are OK in zoos.
12 zoos nationwide have released their elephants to sanctuary. Seattle needs to be compassionate as a city and support the release of these socially complex, emotionally intelligent and mobility wired beings to sanctuary.
If you are interested in compassionately supporting the release of elephants to sanctuary, please email Seattle City Council.
I completely agree. Here’s a great article for those who want to learn more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1865628,00.html