Imagine landing in a foreign country prepared to volunteer for eight weeks in the Amazon.
You’ve packed the bare necessities, an ample supply of mosquito repellent, and maybe even thrown in a small indulgence to get you through the harder times, a pack of gummies perhaps, or photographs of your family. You’ll be travelling far from those whom you know and even further from that which you know. Undoubtedly, many visitors to the Manu Learning Centre (MLC) will be familiar with this experience.
Now, imagine that you’re only 22-years-old, Facebook is a recently-realized dream that has yet to become Mark Zuckerberg’s full time job, and you have just realized that the host organization you signed up with simply doesn’t exist (as you step off of a minibus that has journeyed over the Andean mountain range for 10 hours before dropping you off in a sleepy port town that clocks in at 90 per cent humidity).
But what began as a misleading volunteer trip for then-GAP student, Quinn Meyer, ended up leading him to found the crees Foundation less than two years later in 2003. And what began as a group of basic structures staffed by a modest team of researchers and volunteers, has grown into the Manu Learning Centre as we know it today, which now houses up to 40 on-site staff and receives an increasing number of volunteers, interns, and tourists with every year.
This weekend, Crees will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Manu Learning Centre, which was inaugurated in 2005; and in honor of this memorable date, we wanted to flash back to its formative years and see how the current MLC compares.
The Crees Foundation is fortunate to have had a dedicated team both on-site and in the offices keep the Manu Learning Centre running and growing over the past decade – some of our staff have even been with us since the MLC’s humble beginnings.
So lastly, here are a few throwbacks that we dug up from the archives of some of our MLC staff members.
To everyone who has supported the Manu Learning Centre over the past 10 years, be it as a staff member, tourist, volunteer, or donor, we thank you and look forward to the next 10 years of continued cutting-edge scientific research and hands-on conservation education!
Text & current photos by Katie Lin