A pre primary project shows children from city schools the importance of living together in harmony with animals and the environment.
Do you ever watch your tiny tot play with an animal and find yourself wondering how they share that amazing bond?
Perhaps they even have a special language for communicating. And if that is true, it was very palpable yesterday, at the project put up by three and four year olds, titled ‘A touch of Love’ at The Cathedral and John Connon School’s Pre-Primary Section. The idea behind this being to instil awareness about looking after animals and in doing so, caring for the environment. The project had visitors from other city schools including West Wind, Casa Bambino Montessori and Central School for the Deaf among others. Also present were two city animal NGOs — The Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD) and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) — in a bid to make the learning more practical and valuable. While SPCA brought in some of their own animals — a pony, a donkey, a calf and even an owl — it seemed the entire fauna world had descended at the school campus, with animals ranging from dogs, rabbits, chicks, parrots and more.
“There’s so much hatred in the world today. We wanted to generate some love among everyone and what better way to do that than through these animals!” says Ketaki Mazumdar, Headmistress of the school.
“We chose the topic ‘I love pets’ and divided it into three categories — garden, domestic and farm pets. We do a lot of value education, so sharing and caring through pets became an interesting feature. We don’t miss out on the academic part either, so we have story telling sessions about pets, pet-related words, numericals, phonics, motor skill development through pet-interactive activities.” Isn’t she apprehensive about the fact these are really small kids at three and four years? “Of course, everything is done theoretically and practically, at their level, so that’s never a hindrance,” she clarifies.
One couldn’t miss the brightly-coloured cushions, knob hangers, pen stands, tissue boxes and T-shirts the kids had worked on, with a little bit of help from their moms and teachers. At one of the stalls, the kids were seen chomping away on animal-shaped cheese and chocolate sandwiches they themselves made. The puppet show about animals being man’s best friends seemed to be the hot favourite show, while several curious little listeners were spotted intently heeding to amazing facts about animals like horses, ladybugs and rabbits.
Clearly, the children were
enthralled. A particularly excited little boy, Khush exclaimed, ‘Hey guys,’ and waved smilingly at a pony. He didn’t need to spell out that he was loving it being there.
Meenal, a WSD volunteer, says, “It’s the perfect age to teach kids to love animals and even if they don’t love them when they grow up, they will learn not to harm them.” Colonel JC Khanna, secretary of SPCA, feels, “If their childhood begins with loving animals, the feeling remains through life.” SPCA, he says, has been lending support to several schools for special children and ashrams too. “Kids only know animals through picture books. So why not give them a chance to touch them, watch how they behave and know them better?” he reasons.
The words ring true, even as you leave the compound and the kids continue to pet the friendly dog at the entry, sitting contentedly wearing the tag — ‘Welcome
children.’
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