As part of the celebrations of Children’s Day on the 14 th November, Barnyard, Sainik Farms, New Delhi collaborated with STRAW India to organise our Compassionate Classroom Program in, that was attended by 30+ children along with parents and guardians.
The children were first given a tour of the Barnyard Farm which is a home to around 300 farm animals, all rescued and rehabilitated and engaged for sensitisation and education programs.
The Compassionate Classrooms Program was done through the novel medium of Shadow Puppets by Ms Priyanka Lal Gowda and her team. The title of the story was ‘Popcorn and the Fabulous Friendmaking Machine,’ where the children loved the puppeteering-based storytelling about the hen, her true friends in the farm and her fake online friends.
This was followed by a sensitisation exercise wherein one of the teachers used the puppets of Ammu the Doll and her dog Choco to convey the similarities of existence in humans and animals. Kids applauded enthusiastically to Ammu’s narration of the similarities between herself and Choco.
The session reached its crescendo with another sensitisation exercise referred to as the ‘Bucket of Kindness’. Children were provided small buckets and scraps of paper. They were given various situations related to problems faced by community animals and were asked to react to them. Every kind reaction earned them a chance to fill their bucket
while unkind reactions warranted opposite responses. Children were very involved in the exercise and sought to fill their buckets to the maximum.
The session culminated with an Arts and Crafts activity. Children were shown samples of animals made through dried leaves. They were provided papers, dried leaves and sketch pens to make their own caricatures which were then duly submitted as the work done by Animal Ambassadors.
The entire program was held in high regard by our collaborators at Barnyard as well as by children’s guardians who admired the novelty of the sessions and the interactive elements involved therein. We believe that Compassionate Classrooms should not remain limited to traditional classrooms and should take children closer to nature and animals in a more tangible and experiential manner. Hence, we hope to organise more Compassionate Classrooms programs at Barnyard and similar locations in the future for making the experiences of sensitisation and animal-centred learning more tangible, naturally situated and experiential.