The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.’
– M.K. Gandhi
Can you use the information below to help your child be more compassionate? To help them become a better citizen? Can you suggest it to your local school?
Dear Educator:
We live in a world that is full of the beauty of nature. Animals are the part of that natural world to which we are most closely related. Yet, throughout history, people have often treated animals more like things than living, feeling beings. Now, however, thanks to naturalists like Dr Jane Goodall, we are recognising that animals are far more complex than we once believed—and capable of experiencing anxiety, suffering and joy.
For today’s young people, developing empathy toward animals can be a key step toward developing empathy for and rejecting violence against all beings, including human beings. It is important, therefore, that your students learn to recognise that the animals with whom we share this planet are, in many ways, not so different from ourselves.
Compassionate Citizen is the new Indian version of our internationally recognised humane education programme designed to help your students better understand and appreciate the animals with whom we share India and the world. In the reproducible activities that form the heart of this programme, your students will use their thinking and writing skills to imagine the feelings and consider the incredible abilities of other animals, examine how our relationships with them have changed through history, discover alternatives to their use and respond to situations in which their well-being is threatened. After completing this program, your students will have gained a richer understanding of animals in our world—and a sense of how we can treat them as fellow beings, with compassion and respect.
We know that other teachers in your own or nearby schools will want to present these activities to their students, and we encourage you to share the educational components of this kit with them or have them contact us at the address below to obtain their own.
Compassionate Citizen is provided to schools and teachers free of charge. Although these materials are copyrighted, you are encouraged to reproduce any or all of them for distribution to your colleagues. Also, please take the time to fill out and return the enclosed response card. We welcome and value your professional comments and suggestions.
Compassionate Citizen has also produced a free video that will grab your students’ attention with amazing animal footage, cartoons, topics for discussion and humour. The Compassionate Citizen program is available in various Indian languages. The program is available in poster or video versions. If you don’t have a copy of the video and would like one, please click on this.
We hope that using this program will help your students realise that animals experience life in much the same way that we do. In doing so, you’ll be helping them make India and the world we share a better and richer place for all of us. Thank you!
This is from – http://www.compassionatecitizen.com/
