Monique Pool, Green Heritage Fund Suriname
When sloths are in trouble in Suriname, people call today’s guest for help. Social entrepreneur Monique Pool is a CNN Hero and the founder of Green Heritage Fund Suriname. She’s rescuing homeless sloths in South America who are facing deforestation of their natural habitats. It all began from a chance encounter at the animal shelter that led to her facing what history called the “sloth Armageddon.” She is also helping other animals in Suriname, such as anteaters and dolphins.
Learn what a rescue mission looks like, how she built an animal sanctuary in her own house, and why she wakes up at 4am.
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Show Links for Monique Pool
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein
Show Notes & Summary for Monique Pool
- What Monique Pool does during her free time
- How looking for her missing dog changed Monique’s life for good
- Monique hadn’t realized that sloths have a 30 year life span when she began taking them in at her sanctuary
- Monique explains what happened to the first baby sloth she rescued and how it changed her life
- How Monique names each of the sloths
- What happened during the sloth “Armageddon” in Suriname
- The difference between two-fingered and three-fingered sloths
- How Monique managed to house 200 sloths after the big rescue
- Monique’s experience working at Conservation International Suriname
- How Monique got help from experts in Costa Rica and Colombia
- The deliberate process that helped Monique become a sloth newbie to a sloth expert
- Why Monique was inspired by Wangari Maathai, the first African female to receive the Nobel Peace Prize
- How Monique got involved in a battle with the local oil companies
- “Ni un paso atrás.” –The quote that keeps Monique going
- Monique explains the peculiar behavior of sloths when they feel stressed out
- Relocating the sloths to new forests
- The sloth that was most special to Monique and the things she did in the bathroom
- What is going through her mind when Monique is releasing the sloths back into the wild
- The first products that Green Fund Suriname began selling to raise money
- Monique put in a lot of her own money to start the NGO
- The Suriname River pink belly dolphin project
- What it was like to have her parents as her first volunteers
- The moment that made Monique question her own conviction to keep fighting for the animals and the environment
- Why Monique feels she has failed at fundraising
- What volunteers do for the organization
- The story behind their website
- The story behind their merchandise program
- What Monique did with a sloth that had been shot with a bullet
- How Monique is “professionalizing” Green Heritage Fund Suriname instead of doing things on the fly
- How Monique used globalgiving.org to find mentors
- Her take on personal finance for the social entrepreneur
- The new sloth rehabilitation center that is under construction
- Sloth Armageddon 2 is looming
- Monique’s public speaking routine
- Her upcoming book, Slothified
- Why Monique wakes up at 4am
- What Monique would say to her favorite sloth Lucia if she could see him one more time
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