Be the change that you want to see in this world. Mahatma Gandhi
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Hey everyone! Jnanee here :D Remember our teacher-in-charge (Mr Lock) from RCLF? He passed me info about the symposium so I shall put it here :
"ACRES, in collaboration with the animal societies from the 3 (Singapore) universities, will organize the Singapore Animal Welfare Symposium on 24th May 2008. Here, a group of 3 or more can win up to S$1,500 by implementing any idea that will make a positive change to the animals in Singapore"
We could use one of our ideas, since we already have them planned out! Yay! :D Mr Lock says the max size isn't specified, but I doubt our group will be that big anyways :D I'm in for this one! Anyone else in? We need to form a group fast so we can confirm that we're participating in the symposium. Yay :D Get back to me by next Friday, alright? :D
Hey people! I totally agree with all of you. We must must translate our proposal into action. I mean we had a lot of fun and learnt a lot during the forum. But if it only benefited us then it wouldn't serve the purpose of us being community advocates right? We can start with editing the proposal and making it more detailed. After each person has edited it he/she can send it to the next person and through the round robin kind of thing we can hopefully have a super proposal at the end. Yea and we should focus on one thing at a time. so lets focus on the education proposal first since its the most relevant to us and its the easiest to accomplish. Baby steps :D
I also think we should start a webshots account so that we can all put up pictures from rclf so its easy for all of us to access them.
Lets keep this blog and SIG alive manzz! <3
PS: I want to share this with y'all. But if you're squeamish PLEASE DON'T WATCH. Its more gruesome than any video we watched. Its a video of how they get fur from animals. Like the one vernus and geetha wanted to show us but it didn't work. There was this scene where they showed the animal, all its flesh bared and even some bone. And it was still blinking and moving. I stopped watching cos it was too painful.
Hi guys! This is Yidan here. This blog is amazing!!! I love its design... :D Hope it will really serve its role as a platform to connect every one of us. Before I came to the forum, I thought it would be quite bored. But things didn't turn out as what I think. I'm really happy to meet you guys and I had a very enjoyable time. I agree with Rebecca. I think we can carry out at least some parts of our action plan. It's feasible. Maybe we can edit the proposal and send it to MOE???
This is Rebecca here! I'm the second to post! Yeah! Just here to leave some thoughts after the five/four days RCLF. I must say that i am very very glad and happy to have joint this forum and come to meet you wonderful animal lovers. Haha.
The proposal that we've come up with right..anyone gonna take a step further to set things right? Especially the Education part, i really think it's workable. So people, let's tag on this!=)
And our overseas friends! You all are so far away, so please come here and stay in touch with all of us yea?! And next time when you come to Singapore we can bring you all jalan jalan.
This is Minru. Eh, I just wanted to say I had a really fantastic 4 days with you guys and I'm glad this forum didn't turn out half as boring as I expected initially (because, well it seemed to be completely about serious business). In fact I think it's totally worth some of my March holidays which I could have spent mugging for my March block test next week! Okok I'm just kidding. Of course it was worth my time! :D
I hope you guys can continue to update this blog in true spirit of our awesome SIG! If you want to be added as an author but don't know how to, sign up for a blogger account and then post up your blogger email in the tagboard (blue heart).
:D
Good luck to everyone for their upcoming exams/tests! Hopefully we'll all meet again somehow or other in the future.
I shall let the pictures do the speaking for themselves. If you want to see a picture in its full size, click and drag it to your URL or tab bar for IE 7 and Firefox users.
With the rising concern of climate changes, global warming in different parts of the world, wild life preservation has become a task that is even more difficult than ever. Singapore as a more developed country in the ASEAN region can play a role in starting the advocacy of wild life preservation.
Ironically, over the years, Singapore has become Asia’s number one illegal wildlife trading hub. Most wild life animals that are prohibited as pets in Singapore have been illegally imported, exported by traders. The trade in wild animals for pets results in the deaths of millions of animals every year during capture and transport—and inflicts extreme suffering on the animals involved. Often, more than half of the animals smuggled to supply exotic pets will die. More than 4,000 animals have been seized from dealers and private homes in the last five years in Singapore for reported cases only. In year 2005, it is also found that 1 in every 5 pet shops sell exotic wild life that is prohibited by law. The supply for the demand to Singapore pet owners shows that the law in Singapore protecting wild life clearly is not strict enough to deter these illegal wild life trades and also implies the ignorant consumerism amongst the public.
Issue for consideration
Hence, it is crucial that Singapore as part of an active member of the ASEAN region should take pro-active actions to contribute in this noble cause of preserving wild life by tackling illegal wild life trade. This can be done by:
Enforcing the laws of the Singapore Constitution that protect illicit wild life trade
Educating the public the consequences of supporting wild life trade
Raising their awareness of the current situation of many endangered wild life that concerns Singapore
This proposal will concentrate on the aspect of education to public and in particular to the youths in Singapore.
Youths are mainly targeted as we believe that future of Singapore and the future of the wildlife preservation of Singapore lie in the hands of these young people. Moreover, the introduction of the various events into schools will help enrich students’ learning experience and branch out from their conventional curriculum, allowing young conservationists and environmentalists to contribute in efforts to their interests while providing them with the suitable platform for development.
Proposed Solution
(1)Creation of Nationwide Campaign
A campaign for wild life and the environment is proposed to be help nation wide in Singapore which can be an annual event supported and sponsored by the Singapore AVA. The campaign for wild life will work very closely with Singapore’s youths where it will come with the introduction of a “Wild Life Week” in Singapore. Schools, public, media, and various wild animal welfare NGOs like WWF, ACRES, NANAS can come together to show their support for the greater cause of help protecting wild life and to put a halt to illegal wild life trade in the country. The Wild Life Week will consist of:
Film making competitions for schooling youths ranging from the age of 13-21 from secondary school, junior colleges, IPs school, polytechnics, ITEs, where the animation production will be targeted to raise the awareness of the public of the current situation of a particular wildlife issue that is close to heart. Film making competitions will be organized by the AVA in collaboration with MOE to help educate our youths about the mounting concern of many endangered wildlife. The winning team will have their production show cased on mobile TVs during the wildlife week (as part of the aim to raise public awareness) along with attractive prices sponsored by AVA.
Poster design competition will be opened for students from different categories, like the primary school category and the secondary schools category. Students involved will be given the task of designing a poster that will suit a theme given by the AVA and to achieve the task of raising awareness of the public. The AVA can work with schools nation wide to promote this competition as part of the youths’ learning. The winning posters will be used as the featured posters of the wild life week to promote the particular theme. It may be used in wild life week road shows, distributed to schools and institutes and community centers as part of the advertisement for the wild life week.
Road shows launched at Orchard road where we can garner more audience. This road show will be held by ACRES and its volunteers who may be public volunteers or students volunteering as part of their CIP, with the support of the AVA. This is to raise awareness of the public and road shows are good mediums to inform these issues to the general public. Also, these road shows will provide a good platform for these NGOs to raise funds for their organizations to help save wild life. Road shows will include booths set up by wild life preservation organizations like WWF, ACRES, and NANAS.
(2)Implementing Wild Life Education in Schools
It is proposed also to include wild life education in Singapore’s National Education or Civics and Moral Education. The aims of this proposed solution are:
üTo educate generations to come to cherish and to protect our environment and nation’s treasure.
üTo educate and to raise awareness of the young generations in Singapore that wild animals are not pets.
üTo inform students of the current situation of some endangering wild life native to Singapore.
üTo inform students the mounting concern of illegal wildlife trade in Singapore and how each individual can work together to curb this situation.
This can be done by introducing a new chapter that contains current situation of illegal wild life trade in Singapore and the importance of wild life preservation into the Civics and Moral Education textbooks of primary and secondary school students. Also, talks by relevant NGOs can also be held in schools to raise the students’ awareness of wild life issues concurrent with their lessons.
Providing wild life concerning options for compulsory services, such as Community Involvement Program (CIP), Service Learning Project (SLP).
üSchool based compulsory projects should include wild life concerning projects as an option to also provide a platform for young conservationists or environmentalists to contribute their effort in their areas of interest.
üAVA by cooperating with the MOE to introduce to schools CIPs options for students to volunteer in NGOs like ACRES or by helping in annual wild life week road shows or by helping in organizing the annual wild life campaign.
Expectations
By informing and educating the people, Singapore can curb wild life trades by cutting off the demand in the market and by raising their awareness of the importance of preserving these wild life especially some that are native to Singapore. The final aim of the whole proposal will be for the youths taking the advocacy of preserving wild life as part of their education odyssey and with that,projecting this voice of wild life preservation further to reach out tothe general public.
