A bilingual story book titled “Gab’s Story” in English and Vietnamese has just been published by Wildlife At Risk (WAR) and Ho Chi Minh city Department of Education and Training to educate children aged 12-15 years old about illegal hunting, trading and consumption of endangered wildlife in Vietnam.

“Gab’s story” was developed based on facts about illegal wildlife hunting, trading and consumption in Vietnam. This story is about a painful but lucky journey of Gab – a Yellow cheeked Crested Gibbon.

The journey starts from a beautiful jungle to a painful time when Gab’s family is destroyed by poachers, through a miserable chapter when Gab experiences so many endangered wildlife being traded and killed and ends with a happy ending when Gab is luckily rescued and released back to the wild.

The story book includes 40 pages sized 18 x 18cm illustrated by nearly 40 artistic paintings of the famous artist Mr. Dao Van Hoang, who is devoting for wildlife and nature painting in Vietnam.

The book is now widely distributed to students at secondary schools in the SOS program in Ho Chi Minh city. Electronic version of the book is available at: http://wildlifeatrisk.org/new/public/books

“This story book is dedicated to all students, teachers and education managers who visited the SOS traveling exhibition. Especially, the book is to acknowledge excellent efforts from approximately 200 volunteer students of WAR’s SOS program who have been telling Gab’s story to secondary school students. The book is especially dedicated to all children in the hope that they will say NO to illegal wildlife products,” said Ms. Do Thi Thanh Huyen, WAR’s Wildlife Education Manager, who is also the author of the Gab’s Story.

Over 100,000 students and teachers from Ho Chi Minh city heard this story when visiting the SOS exhibition on educating on wildlife consumption. Based on positive feedback, WAR decided to publish this story in order to personalize sufferings many animals endure and to encourage a larger number of international and domestic audience to take part in wildlife protection.

Gab is the ambassador of the SOS program – educating on wildlife consumption that have been conducting by WAR and Ho Chi Minh city Department of Education and Training since 2011 in approximately 300 secondary schools in the city.

In the academic year 2015-2016, the SOS program includes four different components including: SOS traveling exhibition, visiting Cu Chi Wildlife Rescue Station, integrating wildlife protection into ten lessons of official curriculum of Biology Subject Grade 7, and integrating wildlife protection into extra-curriculum activities./.

( Compiled by VNF )