Ronni’s passionate radio appeal for elephants and EIA

I love listening to Radio 4. As a child, I was raised on Just a Minute and I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, and there’s something so comforting and reassuring about the lyrical poetry of the shipping forecast.

These days I have very little time to listen but I’m still addicted to my Sunday morning fix of Points of View and, although I am rarely up for the early morning broadcast, I’ve been listening to the Sunday evening repeat of the Radio 4 Appeal.

If you haven’t heard it, every week a different charity has three minutes to make its case and ask for support for its work. It’s quite a challenge, and one that I’ve recently had to face as I’m very excited to say that EIA will have a Radio 4 appeal broadcast on April 7!

But how do you condense all the amazing, complex and diverse work EIA does into just three minutes? I decided to focus on just one aspect of our work – a real crisis and one that’s very topical at the moment – the ivory trade.

As you’ll know if you’ve been reading EIA’s blogs and posts on our Facebook page, elephants are being poached on an industrial scale to feed the surging demand for ivory. We desperately need to raise awareness of this tragedy and the role that governments are playing in stimulating demand.

The next step was to find somebody who feels passionately about elephants to present the appeal on our behalf – and I am very pleased that long term EIA supporter, actress and comedienne  Ronni Ancona stepped up to the plate.

A consummate professional, Ronni delivered the script with passion and conviction – its only a shame that we had to cut her hilarious story about meeting an elephant in Edinburgh Zoo when she was four – but maybe she’ll tell you another time.

To listen to the Radio 4 appeal, you can tune in on Sunday, April 7 at 7.55am and 9.26pm, and again on Thursday, April 11 at 3.27pm.

For a taster of why Ronni is so passionate about the work that EIA does, watch the brief clip above from the recording session when the producer asked her why she supported us.

Please do listen in and donate, and please tell all your friends – we really need to raise funds to help us fight for a future for elephants.

Janet Fereday
Head of Fundraising