阅读理解
On
Miriam's 9th birthday two years ago, her aunt, who lives in Kenya（肯尼亚）, gave money to a group that cares for elephants to celebrate
Miriam's birthday. Then Miriam and her mother visited Africa to learn how the
group was helping elephants. Later, Miriam fell in love with the animals and
wanted to help save them.
A few
months after visiting Africa, Miriam watched How I Became an Elephant, a film
about the mistreatment of elephants in Thailand, and a young girl's effort to
save them. Miriam decided she wanted to raise money to save elephants.
Last
year, Miriam created a program called They Deserve（应得） to Be Free after seeing how young elephants are abused in Thailand. She learned how people take a baby
elephant, don't give it food or water for days and beat it hard. "It made
me really sad. I need to do something useful." Miriam said.
Miriam
is working to make money for Elephant Nature Park in Thailand. She asked her
friends to give money to the park rather than giving her birthday gifts.
She
recently joined about 12 other students in an art center. They made elephants
from clay and decorated（装饰） them. Then she created a
plan to sell clay elephants.
Kate,
Miriam's art teacher, opened her art studio（工作室） to
Miriam and her friends on weekends so they could make clay elephants. She even
gave them the clay." It's great to see a young student wanting to spend
her time on something meaningful. This is what we should all work towards,"
Kate said.
Miriam
says she has sold 180 clay elephants worth 2, 000 dollars, and all of that
money has been sent to Elephant Nature Park in Thailand.
