Club P.A.N. was conceived by the Conservation Group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology's Department of Primatology. The Conservation Group is made up entirely of graduate students from the department who want to participate in conservation activities in addition to their doctoral studies.
Club P.A.N. is the brain child of Thomas Breuer and Julia Riedel. Thomas has been involved in a similar program Club Ebobo in
schools around the field site at which he studies gorillas, Mbeli Bai, Republic of Congo. Julia has been involved in a cultural exchange
project between German and Ivorian schools and thought that a Club Ebobo-type program in Ivory Coast would be perfect for a school system without any environmental studies.
Conservation Group Members who participated in the creation of Club P.A.N. are: Cristina Gomes, Thomas Breuer, Julia
Riedel, Mimi Arandjelovic, Shelly Masi and Geneviève Campbell.
The Conservation Group approached the WCF with the club P.A.N. concept, in order to use their framework, solid infrastructure and strong ties with the Ivorian school system (Ministère de
l’éducation National: Inspection de l’enseignement Primaire de Soubré1 (CPE)) to plan and organize the activities of the education program. Club P.A.N. has so
far been able to obtain funding from the following granting agencies: Cleveland Zoo ($2981 USD), Columbus Zoo ($5000 USD), Rufford Small Grant (£4503 BPS) and a Conservation Education Suitcase
from the Brevard Zoo.
The Conservation Group was also responsible for designing the 10 lessons for club P.A.N. for the 2007-2008 schoo l year. Club P.A.N. is indebted to the many francophone translators who translated
our lessons into french, to the artisits, Claudia Farack & Heike Opizzo, and book editor, Andrea Farack, who volunteered their time and skill in illustrating the pages of our text book. See the lesson
plan section for an example.
Dr. Ilka Herbinger of the WCF, Ivory Coast has been running the program and
organizing the logistics for the project in country. Two Ivorian nationals, Mr Guilahoux Hilaire, (Coordonnateur Général CPE) and Mr Ouattara Dabila (Coordonnateur CPE-IEP, Soubré),
have also recently joined the project and will be travelling between the 10 schools around the Tai National Park to supervise and guide the teachers through the club P.A.N. lessons. Club P.A.N. will be
operating in the following villages in 2007-2008: Tai, Poléoula, Diareoula, Zriglo, Sakré, Petit-Tiemé and 4 schools in Soubré.
In October 2007, a Workshop was hosted by Cristina Gomes, Chloe Cipoletta, Dr. Herbinger, Mr. Guilahoux and Mr. Ouattara in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where the teachers from the Club P.A.N. schools were
introduced to the project. To see a small video please visit the 2007 workshop section.
