Press Release 21 June 2004

Iwokrama Helps New York Students with Award-winning Giant Otter Conservation Web Site

New York, New York - Over the past two years, Iwokrama International Centre has helped students of New York's Gateway School to be active participants in the conservation of one of the most important and endangered species of central Guyana's Iwokrama Forest - the Giant Otter. One of the activities of these enterprising children has been the creation of a web site dedicated to Giant Otter conservation. The web site, called "Saving the Giant River Otter" (www.tqnyc.org/NYC040957), has been developed with Iwokrama's assistance.

Now Gateway School's Giant Otter web site has received great recognition among student-designed educational web sites. On 8 June 2004, at the ThinkQuest New York City annual recognition event, the web site was recognised over 96 other entrants in the 4th-6th Grade Division and received First Prize.

According to its web site, (http://www.tqnyc.org/) "ThinkQuest New York City creatively brings together learning and technology for students and educators" and sponsors the annual "ThinkQuest Challenge, a contest for students to create educational web sites".

William Reed, Gateway School's web site project leader recently expressed his appreciation to Iwokrama by commenting that, "Everyone at Gateway is extremely grateful to the team from Iwokrama for helping build bridges to the children of Guyana and supplying information for the web site, including beautiful wildlife photographs. We hope that these links will broaden and flourish in the years to come."