Elephant Tails Ep 18 – Empowering Women Was Key to Saving ‘Dancing’ Bears

In this episode of Elephant Tails, we sit down with Wildlife SOS co-founder Geeta Seshamani to talk about the importance of empowering women to help conserve wildlife. During Geeta’s decade-long fight to eradicate the cruel ‘dancing’ bear practice in India, she immersed herself in the day-to-day lives of tribal communities. She learned that lasting change begins with uplifting women and girls from misogynistic traditions. Geeta listened to their hopes and needs, and devised clever ways to help these women gain valuable skills and education, allowing them to earn income and gain newfound respect in their communities.

Twenty years later these tribal women have permanent homes, their daughters are going to school and even college, they’re earning income for their families, and they’ve become conservation leaders in their communities.

Read more about the successful women and children of the Kalendar community: https://wildlifesos.org/tribal-rehabilition-programs/on-the-path-of-hope-mahaks-journey-through-wildlife-sos-tribal-rehabilitation-programme/ 

Geeta is interviewed by Wildlife SOS Director of Marketing and Communications, Dana Wilson. Learn more about Wildlife SOS at wildlifesos.org.