Sin eng-14 - stop anumal abuse

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Raffles Institution

Year 2 Research Education

Design for Change School Challenge 2011

Care for Your Animals

By Animal Protectors

Team Leader : Kennedy Oung (2I)

Team Members : Gerry Zhang (2I)

Samuel Lim (2I)

Teacher-Mentor: Mr. Jai Singh

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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the following people and organizations that have
supported us for the course of this project in one way or another.

 Mr Jai Singh, whose has provided us invaluable guidance, without which we
could not have accomplished this project.

 Ms. Selina Sebastian, as well as all other SPCA staff, who have given us
much help one way or another.

 Mdm. Katherine Lee principal of Twinkle Childcare for letting us present to her
children

 Mdm. Lena Koh, principal of MindChamps Preschool for letting us present to
her students

 Mrs. Lim Yoke Tong, who has given us a golden opportunity to present to our
fellow Rafflesians, and also to tell them more about stopping animal abuse.

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Table of contents

Page 4--------------------------------------------------------------------------Chapter 1

Page 5--------------------------------------------------------------------------Chapter 2

Page 6--------------------------------------------------------------------------Chapter 3

Page 7----------------------------------------------------------------------Chapter 3 continued.

Page 8--------------------------------------------------------------------------Chapter 4

Page 9-----------------------------------------------------------------------Chapter 4 continued

Page 10---------------------------------------------------------------------Chapter 4 continued


Page 12--------------------------------------------------------------------------Chapter 5






Page 18--------------------------------------------------------------------------Bibliography

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Design For Change Report
Chapter 1
We decided to take part in design for change because we have
observed that there are more and more stray cats and dogs loitering in our
neighbourhood and this compelled us to want to do something to stop this
phenomenon from aggravating. Thus, this project was the perfect projects for
us to actually do something to help. We decided to set our objectives in this
project to reduce the amount of pets being abandoned by irresponsible pet
owners, thus reducing the amount of stray cats and dogs in our community.
Thus, we did our project in collaboration with the SPCA (Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), who helped a lot in our project. We set
about achieving this goal by going around raising awareness to the public,
children and youths.

We did this by visited several childcare centres, and also made use of a
Design For Change Week program in our own school to raise awareness
about this issue to youths of our age.

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Chapter 2

We did quite a lot of research on the issue at hand after being urged by
our teacher mentor and the SPCA to find out more about this topic. The SPCA
also provided us with the statistics they had for us to read up on. Some
examples of these include the amount of pets discarded by owners in
Singapore every year, capacity of animals the SPCA can hold and amount of
animals put to sleep every year in Singapore. The problems of the increase in
the amount of stray do not just affect the animals, but they affect residents in
that area as well. According the Mrs Selina Sebastian of the SPCA, the
increase in the amount of strays can lead to an increased amount of animal
droppings, which may cause some inconvenience to the residence as they
might accidentally step into one of these faeces piles. Thus, it can be seen
that the problem is pretty severe. It has actually made the news as the
minister of health personally ordered the sterilization of a lot of stray cats. This
is to prevent them from reproducing further, causing the problem to become
worse. Thus, it can be seen that one way to approach the problem of the
increasing amount of strays is to sterilize the strays such that they cannot
reproduce. However, there is another way, which can solve the problem from
its roots. The solution that can do that is to educate the public about how to be
responsible pet owners, thus preventing them from discarding their pets.
When no one discards their pets anymore, there will be no more strays.
Furthermore, we can educate the young children about this issue so that
when they grow up, none of them will discard their pets if they decide to get
one. We arrived at this solution after speaking to Mrs. Selina Sebastian of the
SPCA, and the SPCA has such a program that does exactly that. Thus, we
did our project as a service learning project. We were also very fortunate that
all our resources that we required were not lacking, and were easily attainable.
For example, we were fortunate that some of Kennedy’s relatives owned
childcare centres, thus allowing us to get appointments easily.

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Chapter 3
The action plan of our project is to educate the young children of our
society, youths of ages similar to us teenagers, and the general public. To
accomplish this, we decided to make arrangements to visit various childcare
centres to put forth to the children information on animal abuse, and the
correct methods to properly handle animals as pets. Also, we had to prepare
posters and information cards containing information concerning pet abuse, to
utilize in our showcasing to our schoolmates, such that they are better able to
understand the information we are trying to convey.
We thus decided to separate the work amongst ourselves, some of us
getting the posters and information cards/brochures from SPCA, while the
others start on the script to present to the children in the childcare centres.
This enabled us to be able to complete the presentation preparation quickly
and efficiently. Also, to get the children’s attention, we decided to get some
small souvenirs such as cards containing information about abandoned pets
and the SPCA contact information to give to the children at the childcare
centres if they answer our question correctly after the presentation, also
enabling us to check if the children learnt anything from the presentation. By
doing so, we are taking a risk on whether the children would listen to the
presentation just to obtain the card, and forget it all later. But we believe that
the children with the cards, which contains contact information of SPCA,
would show the cards to their parents, and that their parents might even get
the information we shared to the children, thus it can be seen that the risk is
worth taking as the positive outweighs the negative effects.
This project also involves many people. Firstly, it involves the help of
Mrs Selina Sebastian, who not only provided us the materials we needed for
the presentation to the child cares we are going, such as the posters and
PowerPoint slides, but also, in supporting us in accomplishing this project.
Also, our teacher-mentor Mr Jai Singh gives us constructive and helpful
guidance and feedback such that we are able to better our project and perfect
it.
Finally, we also met up with Mrs Selina Sebastian on the other ways
we can use to bring forth the information to the children, leading us to decide

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on utilizing posters pasted on large sheets of vanguard. Then, she agreed to
provide us with the necessary posters and cards to present to people.

The poster board that we created

A picture of Ms. Selina Sebastian posing with a
dog

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Days 1 to 3 were spent presenting to the Rafflesians in Raffles Institution. It
was held in the main Atrium, located in the Yusof Ishak Block. On the other
hand, Days 4, 5, 6, and 7 were spent presenting in childcares. Day 4 was
presented in Twinkle Childcare, while Days 5 to 7 were
presented in the Tampines branch of MindChamps
Preschool.

Day 1 (19th July 2011Tuseday) - Raffles Institution
Present: Gerry Zhang, Kennedy Oung

On Day 1, there were practically no participants in
our presentations. This was probably due to busy schedules, which
consequently led to the interested participants being unable to stay back and
listen to our presentations. However, we were upbeat about it, and felt that we
would get more participants on the next 2 days. We also created a
questionnaire with the rest of the school mates taking part in this Design for
Change project, to test the level of understanding in our participants.
Day 2 (20th July 2011, Wednesday) - Raffles Institution
Present: Gerry Zhang, Samuel Lim, Kennedy Oung

On Day 2, an overwhelmingly high number of participants had come to
view our presentations. We were delighted that so many people were
interested, and it was far beyond our expectations. We gave out the
questionnaires, and even gave a tube of Polo candy to those who could
answer at least 8 of them correctly, as an added bonus. We felt that the
reason for the increased participation was that Wednesday was a day where
majority of the students had to stay back for CCA (co-curricular activities), and
would be able to visit our booths. Furthermore, after seeing the crowd, as well
as the incentive of a tube Polo candy, those that may not have been
interested might have had their interests sparked.

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Students reading from posters

A high number of students on
A student filling up the Day 2
questionnaire while he looks
for the answers

Day 3 (21st July 2011, Thursday)- Raffles Institution
Present: Samuel Lim, Kennedy Oung
On Day 3, the participants was lower than that of Day 2, but still much
better than that of Day 1. However, as we observed an increased number of
teachers passing by, we decided to try and convince teachers to participate in
our questionnaire challenge too. Thankfully, most of the teachers had the time
to spare to visit our booths. Thus, the bulk of our participants on Day 3 were
teachers.

Gerry giving out questionnaires

A picture of a completed questionnaire

Day 4 (25 July 2011, Tuesday)- Twinkle Childcare
Present: Gerry Zhang, Kennedy Oung

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Day 4 was completed at Twinkle Childcare, where we had presented to
small group of 7 to 10 people. As Twinkle Childcare did not possess a
projector, we could only present it with the poster we had used in the
Exhibition Week. The children were quite rowdy, and we had a hard time
trying to control them. However, this problem was solved with us offering
incentives, to coax them to focus. The children, being of a younger age, had a
relatively short attention span, and could not sit still. Furthermore, the children
had difficulty understanding some of the vocabulary that we had used. As
such, we could only try to use analogies, as well explaining it in simple terms,
to get our message across. A minor setback was that we were struggling to
try and come up with analogies and simpler explanations, which caused mild
stuttering, as well as time constraints. While presenting in the childcare, we
came upon astonishing pieces of news. The children were animal abusers.
Some of these children had been making a habit of kicking stray animals,
especially cats, whenever they chanced upon them, and causing them harm.
We were surprised, as we expected the younger generation to be less
inclined to come into contact with stray animals, much less resort to violence.
This was taken into serious consideration, and we immediately told them that
kicking the animals is an act of pet abuse, and that they should not do it. The
principal of the childcare, Mdm. Katherine Lee, was also informed of this.
Action has already been taken prior to this issue.

Children receiving the small Children listening attentively
information cards

Day 5,6,7( 2nd August)- MindChamps Preschool@ Tampines
Present: Samuel Lim, Kennedy Oung

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Days 5, 6, and 7 were all done on the same day, and as such will be
described together. These Days were spent at MindChamps Preschool at
Tampines, and our target audience this time was 3 classes of children with
different ages. As the preschool had a portable projector available, we could
use our PowerPoint slides to present to the children. This time, the children
were more focused, and quieter as compared to the 4th Day, probably
because of the presence of teachers, as well as having PowerPoint slides
both filled with colourful pictures, and with simple words to entertain them.
These PowerPoint slides were prepared by the SPCA, who have had more
experience presenting to children, and is thus more ‘child- friendly’. The
presentation had gone smoothly, with minor hitches such as children playing
with the wire, but generally quite successful. Many children reared pets at
home, and loved to learn more about taking care of pets. As far as we could
tell, the children did not abuse animals, and were responsible pet owners. It
was good news to us, as we were afraid that this group of children may be pet
abusers as well.

MindChamps @ Tampines Kennedy presenting to the
children at MindChamps
Preschool

Chapter 5

Reflections

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We have managed to successfully educate the youths, as well as
children about taking proper care of their pets, as well as about the harmful
effects of abusing animals. Furthermore, we have managed to find potential
animal abusers (Day 4, Twinkle Childcare), and told them about how it was
wrong to do such things. Thus, we consider most of our objectives met.
However, we did not manage to present to the target number of audiences—
this was the only objective we did not meet. This was probably because we
expected more audiences on Days 1 and 4.

We feel that this project had been a fruitful, fun, yet memorable
experience, in which we have learnt a great amount of things. From this
experience, not only have we learnt to communicate with kids better, we have
also established a relationship with some of the staff from SPCA. These ties
may prove to be useful and reliable in the long run.

In the past, we would be unable to give our best in doing a project that
would require much time and energy. However, through this project, we have
learnt to persevere, and that we can make a difference in the world.

We feel that we are able to persevere in our project. This has enabled
us to keep on going, even in the face of adversity. However, we tend to get
distracted easily, an example being us forgetting to work on the RE project
when we have other projects to work on. Another weakness would be our flaw
of procrastination. We often leave many of our tasks to be completed in the
eleventh hour. This has caused much trouble for those around us, such as
having to return the posters to the SPCA on time.

One of the challenges that we have faced include us being unable to
meet up on the holidays to complete this project. This is partly because of our
hectic schedules, as well as the our habit to procrastinate, as mentioned
above. Also, it was difficult to find suitable childcare centers. These centers
needed to be able to accommodate us at a time where we are free. This is
difficult as we do not have our weekends free, and can only go there after
school.

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Thus, we feel that we should work on rectify those problems listed
above. We should try to work on our outstanding tasks while we still have the
time, and organize our schedule better.

Reflections (Gerry)

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This project has taught me a lot of things about myself, that I have the
power to make the change I want to have in the world and can show
compassion to not just humans, but likewise animals. My life is considerable
more comfortable than these stray animals that have to forage for scraps for
their food. Thus, I need to be humble and show compassion to these poor
animals. Thus, I believe that I have learnt much from this experience of
working with the SPCA, and I would definitely treat animals that I see better.
However, I think that I may not be a very good social worker or volunteer
since my school life is very hectic and this would cause me to be unable to
find much time for volunteering work.
I believe, that through this project I have made a impact, however small, to
the society as I have taken a step to solve a problem that would soon become
a nuisance. After working on these project, I found that my initial thinking that
the stray cats and dogs were not a problem to society was flawed, thus
prompting me to solve this issue such that it will not trouble people in the
community anymore. As can be seen from the fact that it made the news, it is
a huge problem indeed.
In the future, I believe that I can continue to work with the SPCA to tackle
this problem and hopefully, solve it once and for all. It will have a great social
impact since people need not worry about the animal droppings anymore.
Furthermore, it has a political impact, since the minister can devote his time
on other more pressing issues. The economic impact is that SPCA will not
need to spend more money in getting more land to house these stray animals.
However, these problem will not be easily solved. Although we reach out to
people to educate them to be responsible pet owners, they might not listen to
us, or take our advice as a grain of salt. Thus, we have to find ways to break
through these mental barriers to effectively curb the problem at hand. If
possible, I would like the government to get professional pet handlers or
trainers to hold talks and workshops to educate the public about responsible
pet ownership. People will take professionals more seriously, and these might
help break through some of the mindsets I mentioned earlier. Hopefully, these
solutions will be implemented in the near future so as to help solve the
problem.

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In conclusion, I have enjoyed myself thoroughly after working on this
project. While enriching myself with new knowledge, I have also received an
opportunity to work with a non-profit organization, the SPCA. Thus, I want to
thank my teacher mentor, my group mates and everyone that has helped or
encouraged me in one way or another.

Reflections (Samuel Lim)
In this past year doing this research education project, I believe I have
learnt many things about myself, and ways I can improve further. Firstly, I
know that I can change something, i can make the change in the world I live in,
and all these are possible if I am persevering enough. Perseverance, a virtue
needed in almost any situations, is one I believe I lack in, due to my knack to
get distracted very easily, and thus this is an important aspect this research
education project has helped me understand better. Also, I feel that all of us
have the capacity to be compassionate, be it to humans or animals, and it
only depends on whether we want to or not. This I largely due to that fact that
these abused and stray animals are living in a life a whole lot worse than ours,
and that through this project, I feel the need to help these animals, give them
a better life. Working with SPCA has taught me a great deal of things,
including the aforementioned ones, and it is truly a wonderful experience
working with SPCA. While I do believe that I can contribute to the society as a
social worker, the heavy workload, and stress prevents me from picking up
the habit of volunteerism, but I will still strive to help as much as I could.
I feel that although I am but one person, by doing this project with my
group mates, we are able to spread the word around, influencing more and
more people, and this small change will spark a change in the mindset of our
current society that pet abuse is tolerated, and that stray animals should not
be treated as part of our society and not given helped. I also once felt that
way too about these aspects on pet abuse and stray animals, but with this
project, it gave me a different insight into the matter, that these animals
should actually be saved, and helped. I believe that through our presentations,
we have given others the insight they need into changing their views in these
matters, and with this, it is like a chain reaction, influence one, and a group

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will be influenced.
I believe that I would want to work with SPCA in the future, to tackle and
solve this problem once and for all, and this would have a great impact on the
lives of us humans, and animals alike. Socially, we are able to have a cleaner
environment to live in as there are no more stray animals that may dirty our
environment. Also, in the political sense, our government would be able to
devote their time to focus more on other aspects of our society, while
economically; there is less need for animal welfare companies to spend too
much money on building places for these animals to stay in. These impacts
however can only work if animal owners and people in our society are willing
to cooperate with us in solving this issue. This can be tackled by implementing
fines to people who are caught abandoning their animals into the wild, and
also to invite renowned motivation speakers or people from animal welfare
groups, as these stubborn people may only learn, when being spoken to by
professionals.
Altogether, I feel that this research education project is truly a great and
wonderful experience for me, and I also feel that working with SPCA, my
group mates and my teacher-mentor has truly made the experience fun and
unforgettable. i thank everyone that has helped in this project one way or
another, for making this project worthwhile and really, the best.

Reflections (Kennedy Oung)

After working on this SL project, I have found out that I am able to lead
fairly well, considering that I have little to no experience in being a team
leader. Even though I love animals, I rarely come into contact with them.
Perhaps this has caused me to cherish animals more than others, who
have had reared pets before, and thus do not cherish animals more than I
do. After this experience, I will view animal abuse in a more serious light. I
will strongly object to animal abuse, and will not let such an act go by
without justice being done. I feel that my busy schedule is stopping me

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from picking up volunteerism. It is already difficult enough to juggle school
and tuition at the same time. Adding voluntary work would be much too
stressful for me to handle. However, I do feel that I will become a good
social service worker. I try my best in whatever I do, and I will make sure
to take part in voluntary work if I can be in time for it.

I have made an effort in stopping pet abuse, as well as promoting
responsible pet ownership. It may be small, but I believe that it will
eventually build into something significant. In the past, I felt that
responsible pet ownership just meant giving it exercise, as well as keeping
it clean. However, now I have learnt that it is much more than that. It
includes watching its diet, buying appropriate enclosures, items, etc. I feel
that through passing on this knowledge, it has the potential to end animal
abuse, as well as the abundance of stray animals.

I can start volunteering at the SPCA (if I am of age), or I may
seek guidance from different pet care organizations to start presenting to a
larger scope of audience, and I may even reach the media. However, to do
so, I will require the support from the community, as well as the
opportunity to present to large groups of audiences. Should such an
opportunity arise, I shall take it. This may implicate the use of animals in
circuses and theme parks worldwide, as many of these animals go through
inhumane training to be able to perform circus tricks. We may petition to
save these animals from cruelty of the trainers, and can send it to the
circuses or theme parks (such as the theme park at Marina Bay Sands) to
request for them to stop using animals in their performances.

Bibliography

MindChamps, PreSchool. (Date unclear). MindChamps preschool centres. Retrieved from
http://www.mindchamps.org/preschool/centres-popup.html

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Selina, Sebastian. (Date unclear). Selina Sebastian, Facebook. Retrieved from
http://www.facebook.com/people/Selina-Sebastian/508719249

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