STORY PREVIEW

2017

Animal Abuse

Newton International School Lagoon

Doha

MENTOR

Denise Debono

STUDENTS

Mansoor Al Muhannadi,

Hibah Chattha,

Bisan Al Mograbi,

Hafizh Farid,

Yuna Lee,

Step 1 FEEL

List the challenges or problems in your surroundings (school,neighbourhood etc.) that bothered you.

In Doha there are so many stray animals (mainly cats) on the street. Some people don't treat them nicely, some even try to drive over them in the street. People don't care about them and they don't want them around.

State the problem chosen to work and why.

So many animals in Doha are treated very badly. In the streets there are lots of stray cats and dogs. Animals are left in garbage cans and also left on the streets. The animals then need to survive and fend for themselves.

Who were the people affected by the problem? What were their primary concerns?

It was animals who were affected by careless people not wanting to take care of animals. The animals' main concern was to survive in this bad environment. Their main concern was to find food, water and shelter, which are the basic needs of any animal.

Step 2 IMAGINE

List ALL the different solutions you came up with.

- Posters around the school to spread awareness about animal abuse. - Announcements in Assembly for the whole of the primary department to show how animals are suffering. - A trip to animal shelters to show students how the animals were abused and what happens to them when they are rescued by animals shelters. - Animal Awareness Day where the students bring in donations for the animal shelters. The younger students can wear animal costumes and masks for the day and have an animal visit where they get to see and touch some animals. - Students brings in their pets for a 'Pet Day.'

Which solution from those listed above did you choose to implement and why?

- Posters to spread awareness because it helps the students understand animal abuse and it spreads the word around. - Announcements during Assembly because everybody would be at Assembly to hear what we had to say i.e. spread the word about animal awareness. - A trip to the animal shelters to better understand how shelters operate. - Animal Awareness day because the students actively participate during this day by wearing costumes and seeing and touching animals, as well as donating money and items for the animal shelters.

Step 3DO

Describe very briefly the process of implementing your solution(s).

- We made posters and stuck them around the school. - We made a lottery to win a giant teddy bear when students gave a donation in order to encourage students to give donations. - We organised and sent letters to students to inform them about the donations and Animal Awareness Day. - We created a competition where students had to create a poster about how to take care of a pet. The winners of the competition got to go on the animal shelters trip. - We announced the Animal Awareness Day during assembly through a presentation and we did a Question and Answer session about animal abuse.

What was the result or impact of your project?

- Students are now more aware the situation of animal abuse, animal shelters and they have more animal awareness. - They have supported the cause to collect donations for animal shelters. - Students are now more considerate when buying pets. They might adopt pets instead or they might search on the internet on how to take better care of their pets.

How many people were impacted by your solution(s)?

1000

What did the impacted people have to say about your project? Provide 2 quotes or testimonials:

"I learnt that animals need more attention and more care in regards to not hitting them." "I learnt that you shouldn't be mean to animals and that you can adopt and take care of animals."

What challenges did you encounter while implementing your project, and how did you overcome them?

- Some students were not reading the posters or they were not paying attention to them. We went round all of the classrooms to remind them of the Animal Awareness Day and poster competition. - For the poster competition, some students did not abide by our terms and conditions, so we had to accept their posters since they had put so much effort in them. - Students were also forgetting to bring in donations so we reminded them daily about it. - We had a miscommunication on when we should have made our announcement during Assembly. On the planned day we did not have a chance to announce our presentation so we had to reschedule it for another day.

How long did it take to implement your solution?

0-7 Days

Which global goals does your story align with?

Life on land

Please explain briefly why do you think so?

We have been trying to make a change for the conditions of animal's lives.

Step 4 SHARE

How did you share your project with your school and community? Who did you share your project with? What was their response?

We shared our project through posting lots of photos of the Animal Awareness Day on Class Dojo and through Facebook. We also shared our video with the rest of the school.

Approximately how many people did you share your story of change with?

More than 100

Briefly share your plan to sustain the impact of your project?

We should have an animal awareness day every single year and we want to start visiting animal shelters more regularly and involving the whole school.

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