Dear colleagues,
As 2017 comes to a close and we gear up for our next phase of impact, I want to share a few exciting updates from an exploratory and transitional year.
In PEN's last newsletter, we invited you to participate in a survey to confirm the need for our online course. We are excited to share the results with you!
115+ conservationists working across 35+ countries responded they are interested in participating in our course. They are eager to build new skills and help their peers learn and succeed.
Our main takeaways:
- 89% are not experts in conservation education.
- 60% have never received any training in conservation education.
- 60% can only be trained in their native languages.
Last month, PEN sent video guidelines to our colleagues who expressed an interest in becoming regional speakers or instructors in our survey. We will announce our course leaders and learning objectives in 2019.
PEN is grateful to our initial sponsors, the Sacramento Zoo, Utah's Hogle Zoo, and HOI AAZK Chapter, for their generous support in helping us design and translate the first module of our course.
This holiday season, you can help us take the next steps in completing our course design and fill a critical gap in training. Become a PEN member to take our course for free! Your year-end contribution is tax-deductible for 2017.
New challenges call for new solutions...
In addition to migrating PEN's training online, we explored a new model to meet the needs of conservation organizations that could not be addressed in typical PEN workshops focused on primate education and peer learning.
Conservationists are working in landscapes shaped by human and business behavior. However, they are not traditionally trained on how to understand and change behavior.
Conservationists need new skills to tackle 21st century challenges:
- Proven frameworks to design for behavior change.
- Business acumen to help businesses adopt conservation practices.
- Industry knowledge to tackle complex cross-sector issues.
To equip organizations with these skills, I founded Design Pathways after years of gaining valuable insights training our community, hosting a Behavior Design workshop at the 2016 International Primatological Society Congress, and months of interviews and iterations this year.
Thank you for your friendship and support this year. I look forward to entering our next chapter with you in 2018!
I wish you and the entire PEN community a New Year filled with peace, happiness, and great progress towards achieving your conservation goals.
Sincerely,
Amy Clanin
Founder and Executive Director