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This show features an interview with Lisbet Chiriboga, the Program Manager of the TeachKind Humane Education Program which promotes compassion for animals through free lessons, virtual classroom presentations, materials, advice, online resources, and more.
Wilbur the rescue kitty, loved and safe now.
We first start this episode with a short interview with local animal activist Jen Dobell, who has recently rescued a cat from a very poor living situation where he was kept locked in a cage in a garage for the last 3 years! Jen tells the rescue story of (now named) Wilbur, and the on-going need of this kitty she has made a promise to in rehabilitating him to a happy life.
If you would like to donate to the GoFund me fundraiser to help with Wilbur’s large vet costs, you can make a secure donation here, and Wilbur thanks you for it. He now has a second chance at life!
“Wolf Walk” at Vancouver International Film Festival
Jean-Michel Bertrand (The Valley of the Wolves, VIFF 17) is back with another stunning eco-adventure spectacle in this year’s VIFF presentation of the film “Wolf Walk” aka “Marche Avec Les Loups”. This time, his backdrop is the margins of the French Alps; he’s on a quest to document young wolves as they break off from their pack with the aim of fending for themselves and, eventually, finding mates. The director begins his quest by pinpointing four mountain passes through which the wolves might travel; he then sets up remote cameras at the spots and pitches camp in a rocky cave to monitor and plan.
Bertrand works with an obsessive zeal, and his dedication is the viewer’s reward: what unfolds under his gaze is engaging and beautiful, not least for the sharp clarity of the digital images. This film is a treat for nature lovers, but it also comes with some important animal rights themes, with regards to wolf populations, and de-populating. We see the exact parallels between what authorities think of wolves in France, as beings “pests”, and how they are often viewed here in BC and Alberta, also as pests as well who threaten the populations of other animals, and thus there are government-sanctioned programs to kill and “de-populate” them.
In this short review, our co-host Alison speaks on the themes of advocacy for the wolves and the goal to strip away the archaic negative characterizations of wolves that go back to medieval times.
To buy your ticket for “Wolf Walk”, go to www.viff.org
In the next weeks, please look forward to additional reviews of several pieces from the Vancouver International Film Festival both on-air and off-air including My Donkey, My Lover and I; Kala Azar; and The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel.
The Vancouver International Film Festival runs from September 24th to October 7th and it’s mostly all online this year, so you can watch from the comfort of your home from British Columbia. Buy a pass or tickets, and find out all the info at viff.org.
Lisbet Chiriboga, Program Manager of TeachKind Humane Education Program
Our feature interview today is with Lisbet Chiriboga, who is a humane educator and the program manager of TeachKind, a program by the international non-profit organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or Peta. TeachKind is a program run by former classroom teachers, here to help schools, educators, and parents promote compassion for animals through free lessons, virtual classroom presentations, materials, advice, online resources, and more.
As the program manager, Lisbet works directly with thousands of educators nationwide who want to make a difference for animals. She creates comprehensive lesson plans and other educational materials, visits schools to conduct teacher workshops and classroom presentations, and has helped TeachKind forge partnerships with educational resources such as Discovery Education, the Humane Education Coalition, and Sounds First Reading System.
In this day now where it’s back-to-school for students, but many parents are keeping their kids behind to teach them from home, the TeachKind program resources may be of particular interest to parents. In this interview, Lisbet speak to us about humane education for your children, whether it’s at the school or at home, and why it’s important to instill compassion for all animals to our kids.
The following are links to the many resources mentioned in the interview:
- Breaking the Chain film (and TeachKind will be creating a lesson to accompany the film too)
- Share the World elementary curriculum
- PETA Kids.com
- Guide to Getting Started with TeachKind Resources
- Rescue Stories – Reading Comprehension Worksheets
- Sheldon Hears a Squeak (Reader’s Theater)
- Nouns: Animals Don’t Belong in the ‘Thing’ Category (plus Compassionate Nouns and Verbs Worksheets)
- Animal-Friendly Idioms posters
- TeachKind.org/Epidemic (Here’s a link to the guide just created that will be going up on this website soon: Empathy Now: Why Humane Education is Urgently Needed and How to Implement It (Guide for Schools)
- Digital Dissection Resources
Show produced by Alison Cole and guest co-hosted by Jen Dobell, with web content written by Alison Cole and formatted by Asami Hitohara.