The Ninth Annual Cocktails for Manatees

Tonight at the Cork Street Whiskey Bar in Belize City, the annual Cocktails for Manatees’ fundraiser is taking place. The support for this endangered mammal is vast, but the Program Director at Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute Jamal Galvez has been the face of the work on the ground. The Cocktails for Manatees event began back in 2016 and tonight will feature live and silent auctions of overnight stays at resorts across the country. Galvez says that the objective remains protecting our manatees in Belize and so for the past two years, funds are being raised to build a marine rescue and education center.

Jamal Galvez

Jamal Galvez, Program Director, Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute

“I don’t want the message to be lost; I want it to be easily received. So it’s manatees are dying and they need your help and you can help. How can you help? And it’s really direct and it is really simple in how people can help. And people sort of look at this thing as a big thing, but it’s very simple ways that you can help. You don’t even need to live in Belize to assist. I take much pride in saying that we have the largest living population of the manatees in the world. You got something weh somebody noh have, yo want protect it. So that’s something that I carry with me and a line that I feel I say so much time that it starts to become a song in my head. And it makes me proud to be Belizean; it makes me proud to be a part of this. It makes me proud to be chosen as the voice of this very important species. Cocktails for the Manatees has been around for I think about nine years now. It has grown tremendously over the years; we have received support from wide and small and large places and the support continues to come in and I am grateful for that because it makes us be able to do the work that we do. Being an N.G.O., we are restricted by grants; mostly international grants and fundraising. But the Cocktails for the Manatees allow us to do things that we cannot do with the grant, go to places that we are limited to because most grants would give you a scope; they want you to work in a specific location. But how do we say no to having a conservation camp in Placencia, Mango Creek, Seine Bight, Gales Point Manatee because the donor or grant does not seek to work in that specific space. So this fundraiser is tremendous in terms of allowing us to do things that we were limited to do.”