The Lakes Animal Friendship Society, an animal welfare organization based on the Southside, has launched a new slate of educational resources that it’s distributing freely to local schools.
Meanwhile, the group has expanded its horizons globally, with materials already available in half a dozen languages, ranging from Carrier to Portuguese.
The volunteer-run charity is aiming to make information about caring for household animals easy to understand through plain language. “We wanted something a little more primary oriented,” said Alistair Schroff, a co-founder of the group.
It’s part of a larger effort towards accessibility. The new educational resources include an activity book and two colouring books, which come in simple black and white formats designed to be easily reproduced in settings with limited access to new educational materials.
“Even remote communities usually have access to a black and white photocopier,” explained Valerie Ingram, another one of group’s co-founders, in a statement about the new resources.
The newly released activity book, “Living with Cats and Dogs,” features children’s drawings on the cover and uses games to prompt young readers to think about the needs of animals, asking them to name the necessities of life for dogs and cats.
One section features word scramble that teaches children about foods that can make a pet sick, such as chocolate.
The group is planning to make the new educational package available as a free download on its website, and is distributing hard copies throughout School District 91 at no cost.
“We start out with the goal of getting them in the hands of all our local kids here in the Lakes District,” said Schroff.
And their outreach is becoming more extensive with an ambitious translation effort. On the local level, Susie Tress, an educator and member of Lake Babine Nation, is translating the new colouring books into the local dialect of Carrier.
And two of the group’s picture books — “Nobody’s Cats” and “Out of the Cold” —have been translated Spanish, French, Portuguese and German.
It’s the result of international connections a tight-knit animal welfare scene — “it’s an amazingly small world,” said Schroff — combined with a desire to make educational materials available across Canada and around the world.
“We’re a bilingual country, so we wanted to have something for local French immersion schools and other schools across Canada,” he said.
The book “Nobody’s Cats” was picked up by a program called RedRover Readers, which provides curriculum resources on animal welfare to schools in the United States, including areas with large Spanish-speaking communities.
As word has spread about the Southbank-based group’s resources, contacts in places including Portugal have translated the texts, which Lakes Animal Friendship then puts into book form.
“You translate, we’ll put it together,” said Schroff. Local volunteers who speak foreign languages have contributed to the work, he added.
“We’re working with another woman locally who has volunteered to translate into Polish,” said Schroff. Also in progress are translations in Romanian and Hungarian.
Altogether, upwards of 40,000 copies of the three pictures have been printed, Schroff said.
Evocative imagery
One of the new resources, a colouring book on how to care for cats and dogs, was adapted into a full-colour picture book featuring fine watercolour illustrations by Ukrainian artist Alex Chepelev.
It’s a flip book: one half is focussed on dogs, the other on cats. The two sections meet in the middle with a peaceful lakeside picnic scene of humans and their pets silhouetted against the sky.
The images evoke an atmosphere of kindness and care. Building that “community of care” is at core of the group’s mission, which links the welfare of animals to wider issues.
“Neglect or abuse of animals is linked to interpersonal violence, so increasing the level of kindness and respect for the needs of our four-legged companions is a big part of developing a community of care,” said Ingram in a statement.
