student scholarships

The Rainsong Uniform and Colegio Scholarship program is twofold:

1.FREE UNIFORMS FOR PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS - we intend to provide uniforms for elementary school children in our area whose families have limited resources, especially families headed by single mothers, or grandparents raising their grandchildren. There are many families who cannot afford to buy the uniforms necessary for their children to attend primary [or elementary] school.

2. COLEGIO SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM - we will provide tuition and fees necessary for Rainsong's selected sponsored students in 6th grade whose families cannot afford to pay for their attendance in colegio [high school - 7th grade & on].

These sponsored students will also enjoy many other benefits from their being involved in the rainsong projects.
For example :

1.private tutoring from rws volunteers in english, math, or any area they are struggling with.

2. also, a series of intensive classes involving global conservation issues, to school them regarding the planetary picture, so that they can begin to share their knowledge with the elementary students in their area's elementary schools, in presentations organized & supervised by rainsong staff, using the world globes provided by Greenwave as teaching tools.

3. help with the collecting of saplings in the forest, bagging the saplings, upgrading the trees to larger bags when necessary, caring for veggie gardens at the rws sanctuary, and other opportunities for learning skills that could provide them later on with a profession as a biodynamic gardener/landscaper or provide them a background for a career as a conservationist/reforester.

4. experience with the animal care in the rescue center.

5.animal husbandry skills - hands on - at Rainsong : goats, horses, chickens, etc.

6. a penpal program: we already have a stateside school ready to be the penpal friends stateside. the penpal program will be online in order to also teach computer skills that anyone in almost any job needs. The penpal program is also another great way to teach them english !!! since the american kids will be writing initially in english.

7. Sea turtle patrol program that will involve the students and their families.

Tarzan the Gatekeeper

here's a little bit about tarzan, our monkey man.
he's the life of the party at rainsong !

tarzan had a pretty rough start in life.
as a tiny infant, he witnessed his mother's murder by people who captured him for a pet.
then he suffered unknown abuses and neglect from his captors.
they quickly tired of caring for him, so they set him out in the trees behind their house, thinking 'well, that's the end of that problem.'
a tiny lil baby capuchin monkey, all alone with no troop to protect him, has ZERO chance of survival in the wild.
a few hours after he was abandoned in the woods, a troop of howler monkeys came along and began to tear him to shreds.
his piercing screams as he was being killed caught the attention of people nearby and they came running to see what was happening.
they were able to rescue him from the troop of howler monkeys, and then they rushed him to the vet's clinic in nearby cobano.
[we happen to know all these details about his sad start in life because some of the kids of the families involved actually visited rainsong's rescue center a few months later, and they were eager to share all the details about this poor baby capuchin monkey]

the vet saved his life, but she could not save his left arm, it was dangling by a shred of skin, and had to be amputated.
he was kept at the vet's clinic in a small kennel box for 6 weeks after being rescued, while recuperating from his surgery and the numerous wounds on his little body.

after such a terrible ordeal, we brought him to rainsong, and began to care for his wounds, both physical and emotional.
we named him tarzan.
tarzan immediately began to adjust to being treated with love and respect, and he quickly became content with his circumstances.

his habitat is located near the front gate of rainsong's homebase, so gradually tarzan began to take it upon himself to announce visitors, strange dogs, snakes in the yard, anything out of the ordinary in the rescue center.
he even keeps inventory of the number of people in the complex.
we rarely leave the rescue center unmanned, but once, when we ALL went to a dinner party,
as we walked out the gate, the last ones to go,
he began to cry out, knowing that he was being left alone.
we could hear his cries even 200 meters down the road.
after that incident, we try to never leave the place totally unmanned.

tarzan is now almost 2 years old.
he's still a juvenile with a lot of growing ahead of him.

now he is a very happy monkey, content and adjusted to his lifestyle at rainsong.
he adores all the attention he gets as the gatekeeper,
everyone who comes in the gate gets a chance to shake his hand [or foot !].

we let him out of his habitat every morning for an hour or two, to enjoy a romp in the canopy at the rescue center.
he's a little clown, jumping tree to tree.
he eats every spider in sight !
and any other bug is on the run when tarzan is loose.
also, he'll sometimes run into the kitchen to look for crackers or cookies to steal.
he's ecstatic bouncing thru the treetops, and he does quite well with just one arm.
and he's always peeping down to make sure he has an audience !

he's a doll, and everyone at rainsong loves him very much !!!

happy trails,
mary at rainsong