On 1st October 2020, STRAW was invited by SCANOVA (https://scanova.io/) to do a webinar which was part of their monthly "Learning and Development" session. STRAW India on its part conducted a beautiful and calming event titled, “Bridging the Gap Between Animals and Humans.”
It began with Vasanthi Kumar, the co-founder of STRAW India explaining about how the organization emphasizes on the importance of creating awareness as that is the key to bringing about change among human beings which in turn leads to a better life for animals. She also stressed on the importance of these sessions, the importance of understanding why one should take care of animals in general and stray animals in particular and the need to understand their psyche and behavioral patterns.
Seemeen Khan, a volunteer at STRAW then displayed a presentation explaining how animals too feel certain emotions that we identify to be completely human. Starting from love, happiness, anger, jealousy, greed, empathy, embarrassment, grief to even boredom, they feel it all and as humans it is our duty not only to understand those feelings but also be sensitive to them and help them through the whole process.
This was followed up by screening a short film which was a based on a true story about two dogs (a St. Bernard named Bruno and a stray Indie dog named Julie) and how irrespective their breeds, all the other differences and obstacles, they bonded with each other. It was also a commentary on how the idea of class (the difference between pedigree dogs and stray dogs) is a human concept but how meaningless it is for animals. The film also reaffirmed the fact that humans may not always have your back, but animals mostly certainly will, through thick and thin.
Participants then discussed the film in great detail and shared personal experiences with understanding the feelings of animals in general. It was a very interactive and fruitful discussion and gradually it turned to discussing important ideas like neutering, feeding stray animals when other civilians are skeptical about it and a lot more.
Seeing the attendance (about 25 of them including SCANOVA’s CEO, Mr. Gautam Garg), their thoughtful questions and heated discussion, it was very clear that the event surely had an impact on the participants and viewers.
No matter how compassionate a human being may be, sometimes they are unable to help animals or even understand what they want because we don’t speak their language or vice versa. But it should be reminded that there is one language that both animals and humans have in common, that is the language of LOVE.