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Protecting the Mountain Gorillas of Virunga
Gorillas Throw a Street Party in Goma To Sell Briquettes
You absolutely must watch this video. If it makes you chuckle half as much as I did, it will brighten up your day.
Now that briquette production is well underway with 490 presses distributed around the periphery of Virunga, and over 3,000 local people employed in making briquettes – we now need to boost our marketing effort in Goma.
That is what this video is all about.
So if you want to see a bunch of gorillas, atop a moving truck, with music blaring and driving the local people nuts – click on the video below.
This may take some time...
Yannick, one of the young guys on the truck, was telling me this morning as they were getting dressed in our parking lot that some people think they are actually real gorillas. He said the other day someone offered him a banana. So what did he do? He grabbed it and ran!
As a footnote the song in the background is called Makala Ya Sasa – which in Swahili means “The New Charcoal” – which of course is what our briquettes are.
Katya wrote the song especially – good job Katya.
And we now have 11 warehouses (that can each store up to 400 sacks of briquettes) at various points throughout Goma. These are effectively purchase points. So we are putting a lot of time and energy into the promotion of this new form of energy. Asking people to change their cooking habits will not happen overnight, but we are giving it our best shot to make it happen as quickly as possible and diminish the threat to the forests of Virunga.
Thanks also for all your continued donations to the briquette program. They are going to very good use.
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- Did Polish Journalist Mix Fact with Fantasy? - TIME
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21 Responses to “Gorillas Throw a Street Party in Goma To Sell Briquettes”
Hilarious- well done guys!
Beautiful!!!
fantastic! wish I was there!
xxx
With such a good music, I am sure you will reach your goals. Congratulations.
Great to hear…. I hope the people there will really see what special, beautiful creatures they have amongst them and how lucky they are to have the gorillas in their country!!!!!!
We also have announcements going out 3 times a day on local radio informing people where the purchasing points are.
Congratulations. You guys are inspirational because not only are you addressing the immediate threats to the wildlife, but you go the extra mile and look at the what is behind the immediate. With all the chaos surrounding the park — war, rebels, etc. — congratulations for always keeping your eye on the ball.
Thanks
Samantha, great to see those gorilla suits being properly used! Fantastic….
Wahoooo!!! Great job, guys! The music is fantastic, too. Let’s hope those briquettes sell like hot cakes.
Yes Emma. Quite. I was sick of driving around with them in the trunk of my car in London! They were quite a pain to get out here, but fortunately Sara brought 4 which left me with only 2 along with my mountains of baby stuff.
Great video and fabulous music! Nice to see you are back, Samantha. How about posting a photo of Alexandre in his new surroundings?
Thanks Iris. Take a look at the blog entry of 19th October!
I’m very happy to see people of goma enjoying …the presence of animals, national park of virunga. Someone told me they thought all gorillas were killed. thanks for your support they can see virunga in action again.
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Samantha, I don’t know how I missed the post, I look at your site almost every day. Gorgeous boy, your Alexander! Iris
Fantastic!
This is conservation in action. I’m going to link your site, and especially this video, to my own website & blog as soon as I have finished this message. It really would be great to see charcoal use reduced to a minimum, or even disappear. We have tried something along the same lines in Queen Elizabeth NP in Uganda by proving a solar oven to one of the primary schools. You can read more about these efforts at
http://jerryhaigh.blogspot.com/search/label/solar%20energy or http://jerryhaigh.blogspot.com/2009/05/uganda-and-wcvm-primary-schools-report.html
Anything to keep the reduce human pressure on the woodlands and wild resources in general. Education is the key, but having fun while learning, as this video clearly shows, makes it al so much easier.
[...] we told you about the moving truck going around the streets of Goma with 6 guys dressed with gorilla suits, selling sacks of fuel [...]
Hi Samantha.
I think that’s a great idea to get peoples attention.
I am a project developer/implementer in The Gambia and we will be starting off a briquetting and fuel efficient stove pilot project early next year. Part of my role as project manager is interlinking with our marketing team - we know how hard it is to break old habits and climb over that acceptance barrier for new things so I’m always on the lookout for different ideas.
Would it be possible for me to start an exchange of ideas with someone in your team by email? I’m happy to share and it looks like you guys have a funky approach in alot of your initiatives. My mail is icecool@qanet.gm - I couldn’t find anywhere on your site for contact apart from your contact form and I can imagine that’s busy as anything. Still I will try that as well - belts and braces :o)
Look forward to hear from you.
Cheers George
Hello George, you are absolutely right. Our biggest challenge now is to make sure people change their burning habits! I have just sent you an email. Cheers!
Love your layout and Zoo World Cheats advice, really helpful! Thank you!!
Fabuleux!!!