Learning How to Serve...


What causes people to change? What causes us to make compassionate choices when we shop for food, buy shoes, select our new coat or winter blanket?
Claire Abrams has conducted compassion education seminars in 120 Udaipur schools. Learning to play with puppies is an important first step for primary school students. While waiting for a bus in rural Rajasthan, Erika Abrams spontaneously started talking to village kids about not keeping parrots in cages. "What do birds want to do most?" "FLY!" comes the unanymous response. Compassion education "captains" like Poonam have helped distribute hundreds of flyers highlighting Animal Aid's emergency rescue line, to ensure that no suffering animal is left behind. Students watch as Claire demonstrates that puppies do NOT like to be bonked on the head or have fingers snapped in their faces. You'd think people automatically knew such things, but they don't. Claire speaks Hindi, and this has made her a popular spokesperson with the Udaipur media. At busy inner city junctions we inform residents about the vital role played by individuals whose eyes and ears are open to the opportunities all around them to help animals. We also use these opportunities to introduce people to the idea of animal rights, and things like the condition of cows in most dairies worldwide.	How can we help people learn that animals are often forced to live in horrific conditions when their bodies are “harvested?” Animals always suffer when they are commercially used-- used in KFC’s “hot wings”; animal tissue used for lipstick; research lab animals’ exhibition of pain as “findings;” eggs used to bind puddings and cakes for desserts; and animal hair used for brushes. The list is a chronicle of suffering too long and dizzying for this web page. And once people know, how do we get them to care ? These are important questions. Everyone seriously trying to expand global peace, environmental protection, and animal rights knows that answering such questions is going to be not only a lifelong process, but rather, a process that covers the remainder of humanity’s habitation on planet earth. Human cruelty to other humans and to animals is not a temporary campaign. We “teachers” of humane education must first and forever be learners. What “worked?” What did not? Did we help create vegans this year? How many? Why do we think “we” had anything to do with it? Animal Aid is conducting the following learning and teaching experiment. These are our assumptions: • People grow fastest when they can touch animals. • People’s behaviour toward animals is most likely to improve when they see the cause-and-effect between their compassionate action and the relief of suffering in an animal. • In India, it’s helpful to have a rescue shelter and hospital where people can come any time and interact with animals in their healing processes. • Having a shelter for street animals and communicating its mission helps people understand that animals have value “as is” without the exploitation of their labour or their hides. • Simple math. The more you do to help, the more animals’ lives are saved. “Do” means give time, money, and persuasion to others to do the same. Animal Aid’s Education Goals: Real Simple WHAT? Total animal liberation. WHO? Every species WHERE? Everywhere. Every country, every ocean, every river, every mountain, every burrow, every inch of sky. HUH? You’ve read it right. No lab testing, no fur, no hoof parts and anuses in hotdogs, no tusks, no down, no fur for wool or hair for our shoe brushes. No skin for our leather briefcases and no cream for our latte. WHY? That’s right. Why. If it causes an animal agony, why would you do it? • 15,000 Udaipur residents have sprung to action by calling Animal Aid to report suffering street animals since 2002. • Our strategies include encouraging guest visits and tours, supporting volunteers, asking for donations, and talking! Help us talk! Talk about animals. Take the risk. It’s so worth it. • From 2005-2009 Claire Abrams has made Compassion-for-Animals presentations to about 25,000 kids in 120 Udaipur schools. • Animal Aid’s work has been detailed 35 times in newspapers, radio interviews, and television reports, both local and national. • 6 anti-cruelty cases have been initiated by Udaipur citizens and lodged with the police over the past 3 years as a result of Animal Aid’s encouragement and education: When you see cruelty, do something to stop it.
Animal Aid in the News

The story above followed Animal Aid and the community rescuing a cow who had fallen into a ditch. In the article at right, Animal Aid brought a happy ending to an injured puppy whose mother was clearly distressed and attempting to protect her baby from predators.
Two puppies were brought to Animal Aid to have the infected stumps of their docked tails treated. We found out that the owner had had the tails docked at the Government Animal Hospital. Tail donkey is against the law; the botched job resulted in infection to the pups. The government surgeon responsible for the illegal surgery was reprimanded by the State of Rajasthan's Animal Husbandry Director, and apologized publicly.
Above: The friendship between an orphaned baby donkey named Rosie, and an orphaned injured calf, both temporary residents in treatment at the Animal Aid hospital, was served to draw dozens of people to the hospital who might otherwise never have come. The emotional lives of animals are poorly understood by most people. Stories like this help to instill the understanding that animals need love too. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Below: Animal Aid volunteers Char and Lucy saw this emaciated stallion tied outside of a wedding horse stable in Udaipur. The particular owner had been approached by Animal Aid several times over the past two years in an effort to encourage him to feed his other horses more (all 7 of his other horses are underweight.) Animal Aid took the matter to the police to conduct an investigation on suspected cruelty. The police were passive, but finally agreed to call for a medical report by government veterinary doctors. The lead vet refused to acknowledge that the horse's condition was grossly underweight. Thanks to the intervention of a high-ranking minister in the Central Government, the veterinary doctor was reprimanded and transferred. This was in itself not a particularly gratifying outcome; however the horse's owner did in fact improve his food rations. In the absence of an accurate medical report, police refused to arrest the owner, and he was never brought to court. This event prompted Animal Aid to invite Brooke Hospital for Animals--a UK-based, international equine welfare organization, to come to Udaipur and provide an "extension" class for government vets so that they could improve their ability to assess the condition of horses and donkeys. Below: The heading of this article is "Hey Cow-Keeper," publicly calling him out to take responsibility for his cow that after growing old and no longer producing milk, he conveniently abandoned, despite a wound on her backside that was infested with maggots. Neighbors saw the cow's condition grow worse each day, and even after urging him to seek treatment, the owner completely refused to have the cow treated. Neighbors called Animal Aid for help and we advised them to file a complaint against the owner for cruel neglect of his retired dairy cow. After the report to the police was made, the owner finally had his cow treated.

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