... BECAUSE BEING AWARE IS NOT ENOUGH -
WE NEED TO CARE
AND CARE ENOUGH TO BE MOVED TO ACTION.
Purpose: The Art Competition is a way for the Orang Utan Republik Foundation to celebrate Orangutan Caring Week, acknowledge the orangutan superheroes who save orangutans, and inspire people that care about orangutans to express their creativity.
Eligibility: Open to all artists or creatives around the world who care about orangutans including students, college students, and the public. It can be an individual or a team (for videos).
Fantasy superheroes seem to be all the rage these days as seen in an explosion in movies and interest over the last several years but our 2022 Orangutan Caring Week theme this year focuses on all of the REAL LIFE, hardworking, orangutan superheroes who are dedicated to caring for, protecting, and saving orangutans and their rainforest homes.
Orangutan Superheroes: They inspire us! They give us hope!
Orangutan Caring Week is a time dedicated to encouraging people to care about saving orangutans and
especially to help support all of the groups, people, and organizations who are doing the incredible work
that they do.
We hope you can participate in some way by holding an event or activity or helping to spread the word on social media through posts, articles, contests, fundraisers, photos and videos during Orangutan Caring Week. Email us your event details so we can share on social media which, in turn, will help support the vital work being done. Please be sure to hashtag all your posts with #OrangutanCaringWeek or #OCW so we can find and share (or post directly to the World Orangutan Events Facebook page.)
Now, more than ever, orangutans need our help and Orangutan Caring Week is a perfect opportunity to spread awareness about the plight of orangutans and the urgent dangers facing their rainforest homes with the goal of motivating people to care - and to care enough to be moved to action.
Little Sudin was confiscated by the Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) in
Lampung Province, Sumatra, in May 2021 along with a female infant orangutan named Siti.
They were rescued from the illegal wildlife trade when they were about to be loaded
onto a ferry. Estimated to be only a year and a half old, these tiny babies would have still
been fully dependent on their mothers.
Sudin and Siti will spend the next few years at the Open Orangutan Sanctuary in the
Bukit Tigapuluh Ecosystem where they will join Jungle School and begin their
rehabilitation journey.
They were transferred to a quarantine facility in Jambi, Sumatra, where they underwent full
medical checkups. Siti was found to be suffering from bronchitis and Sudin was diagnosed with
an inflammatory bowel disease After a few weeks their health and behaviour improved immensely.
Currently, Sudin is very active and spends much of his time playing with Siti and exploring the forest, both growing in confidence and developing the skills they will need to live in the forest someday.
Risis Prawesti is one of the many special orangutan superheroes who are working hard to save, protect, and care for orangutans. Riris works as field veterinarian for Frankfurt Zoological Society at the Sumatran Orangutan Reintroduction Centre in Jambi, Sumatra. Based in the Bukit Tiga Puluh (BTP) Landscape, this program provides intensive Jungle School training to ex-captive orangutans before releasing them into the protected forest. Orangutans are closely monitored after release and given medical care if needed.
Riris organises the health management for orangutans both at the rehabilitation and release
sites. She is also a member of the orangutan evacuation team for human-orangutan conflict
mitigation in the Bukit Tiga Puluh Landscape.
Before she became a veterinarian, she managed the orangutan field database at the
reintroduction centre in 2016. She continued her studies and become a veterinarian to share
her love and passion for wildlife, especially for orangutans. Riris returned to the
jungles of BTP in 2019 as a qualified veterinarian.