Animal welfare with the Caribbean people
Our project „Animal welfare with the Caribbean people“ starts with school programs in English and Spanish that teach children love for animals, the right treatment of animals and respect and responsibility towards other living beings.
The school programs shall not only teach children the love for animals but enable us also to educate future animal welfare workers who will be able to take over many important tasks in their communities.
The school program of the Humane Society of Dominica is in use on Barbados since March 2018.
In September the new school year begins in Barbados as in many other places. As in 2018 a summer camp took place also this year during the school vacation; this time not initiated by the police for endangered adolescents but by Petra Bellamy herself for a very special reason:
Petra Bellamy had heard that the community Bakers Woods had problems with wild monkeys and that people had been hired to shoot the animals.
Since the people who do the shooting are often not well-trained the monkeys are not killed with one shot but injured severely and suffer a long time before they die a horrible death.
Petra decided to offer a workshop about cruelty against animals for the children of Bakers Woods.
The parents agreed and soon the lesson started! More than 20 children of all sorts of families from Bakers Woods took part, as well as some parents. Planned was a lesson of one hour but the children were so thrilled that Petra had to teach for 2 hours.
In-between they played games:
20 plastic animals were put into a bag and the children were blindfolded…
…and had to take an animal out of the bag…
…and guess which animal it was.
Also pieces of paper with the name of different animals written on them were put into the bag and the children had to pull one out and imitate the movements of the animal written on the paper while the other children had to guess which animal was meant. They all had a lot of fun and in the end the children had understood that all animals, monkeys, dogs, cats, have feelings just like we do and they begged the adults not to kill the monkeys. The result was the termination of the planned killing. Now the community searches for humane solutions to solve the monkey problem. A more beautiful and convincing example for the success of the work of Petra Bellamy and the school program can’t be imagined!
Since May Petra Bellamy teaches 6 classes of another public school…
Altogether Petra Bellamy teaches already in 9 schools.
4 public schools :
4 private schools:
This is a phantastic result for a project that runs only 14 months yet!!
The pupils of the Codrington School were the first to visit The Hope Sanctuary in June 2018. That’s when they decided to start a fundraiser for food for The Hope’s animals.
The school had to rent a truck and a taxivan to transport the donations to theHope Sanctuary.
And then of course they visited The Hope’s residents. These experiences they will remember all their life and pass them on to their own kids.
A big Thank you to the school, the teachers and the parents who gave this action their full support.
The new year has generally started well.
Petra Belamy teaches now also in a Montessori school and is negotiating with a 3rd public school.
Overview of the first half year 01/27/2019
During the second half year Petra taught already in 2 public and 3 private schools…
The teachers and the IT staff are very helpful and go to great length to assist and make the lessons as interesting as possible. Often there are not enough chairs but that doesn’t effect the concentration of the children who are very enthusiastic about this new learning device. Afterwards they discuss what they have seen in the film and what can be done to reduce animal suffering.
But the children show also great interest in the learning material of the Humane Society of Dominica, here children of the private Providence School.
Overview of the first half year of our school project on Barbados (09/26/2018)
Private schools were the first that were willing to cooperate with Petra Bellamy, Educational Officer of The Hope Sanctuary.
Between March 2nd and July 29th Petra Bellamy taught altogether 16 times for 2 – 3 hours in 3 private and 1 public school, mostly 2 classes and 35 – 47 pupils. In addition several field trips to The Hope Sanctuary took place.
In August Petra Bellamy taught at the Police summer camp, a youth program where her husband gives lessons about alcohol and drug abuse for endangered adolescents.
…but also here the kids worked seriously, learning not only about domestic and companion animals but also about wildlife on the land and in the water. The learning material with exercises for groups and individual children is very much liked and the children participate with great enthusiasm and attentiveness.
Chief Police Officer Superintendent Margaret Steven mentioned during her speech how happy she was that animal care had been part of the summer camp program 2018. She said that she is an animal lover herself and knows not only about the therapeutic effect animals have on children but considers it as very important that children learn how to love and care and treat animals properly.
The children who visited the summer camp take with them something for life; the knowledge about the dangers of alcohol and drug abuses as well as respect and love for other living beings and knowledge about how to treat and care for them.
Petra Belamy has held already presentations in 2 more private and 3 public schools and the private and one of the public schools have already agreed to implement the school program in the coming school year so that Petra Bellamy will now teach in 5 private and 2 public schools!
First school trips to The Hope Sanctuary (06/26/2018)
Info from Petra Bellamy:
Two classes of the Codrington School and the Providence School have already visited The Hope Sanctuary.
The kids wanted to adopt all the dogs and one child wanted to buy The Hope.
They will start to collect donations for food for the animals and, even more important, they have good ideas about how to prevent animal abuse by informing and teaching the people and they have already understood that spay and neuter is the means to prevent overpopulation of unwanted animals.
Although some of these children won’t spend their whole life on Barbados they will surely live on other islands of the Caribbean and raise awareness there whereas others will stay and become our future animal welfare advocates here.“
Of course caution was necessary and one couldn’t let a whole class of happily excited children into kennels with partly traumatized dogs that had been severely abused in the past.
That was already a bit different during the second visit.
”We had the whole day time and let children in little groups of 2 and 3 to the dogs while the others lined up waiting their turn.”
It was obvious: The children have paid attention during class and have already learnt a lot about the right treatment of animals.
The kids from Codrington School kept word and started a donation campaign for food for The Hope’s animals. Proudly they carry the donations to Petra’s car.
Codrington school is a comprehensive school teaching both primary and secondary grades. The older pupils have a school committee and suggested to raise funds for food for the animals of the Hope Sanctuary at their next meeting.
Lessons have started at two more schools: St. Winifred and Providence School
The pupils who visit private schools don’t come from poor families but many of them will influence the future of Barbados and although they don’t grow up in poverty they often still have old-fashioned ideas about the keeping of animals. Therefore it is important to improve the attitude towards animals also here.
And although these children grow up in a different environment than the children in poverty-stricken areas they see a lot of animal abuse. Petra Bellamy tries to make them realize that things have to change and teaches them not to look away when they observe something that isn’t right.
St Judes Public School is the first public school that agreed to cooperate with Petra Bellamy
Petra received a letter from Providence school thanking her:
„Thanks for your session today. The teachers and children say that they loved it. We look forward to your next visit.“
Codrington school and Providence school are interested in a field trip to The Hope Sanctuary. This will happen probably in June.
First lesson at St Judes Public School
Here are also children from poor families and as on all formerly British islands the children wear school uniforms.
The children participate with great enthusiasm and ask right away when Petra will return. One child says: “You can come every day!”
These are children who experience situations like these daily:
May Petra succeed in teaching these children the love for animals, awareness and empathy needed to bring about the necessary change to make pictures likes these become a thing of the past!