Introducing Raghu
We have started a partnership with the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in Southern India, and specifically their elephant education program through the Great Elephant Migration.
Raghu, as shown in the photos, is an exact replica of a real elephant that resides in India, made with a metal frame and the local wood called Lantana.
Their messaging is below:
Our purpose is to coexist with the millions of other beings that share this planet – not only our fellow humans or pets, but all land, sea, and air beings who populate the planet.
Modern life often teaches us to see the living world as a pyramid, with humans at the top. Life is not a pyramid but a web, with every living thread connected to another. Each glittering strand strengthens, supports, and depends upon its neighbors. Flourishing is mutual, not individual.
To understand our place within that web – to see ourselves not as masters of nature, but as participants, caretakers, protectors, and observers – is to live more deeply, more attentively, and with a richer sense of belonging in the living world.Our adolescent elephant, Raghu, is a reminder of the fragile ecosystems currently in play that continues to constrict the area they traverse and live in. In India, and other Asian countries rules are being changed to allow elephants to be free of doing labor and not be a part of variety shows to attract tourists. In many villages the elephants are now family. Raghu is real, an adolescent, and was built by artisans at the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in Southern India.
Check it out as we share the story of the Indian Elephant and in what better setting that the place to be in San Francisco–The Yerba Buena Gardens— the Soul of Downtown San Francisco.