Educational Institutes for Children - That Emphasize on Teaching Compassion Towards Nature and Animals

“The aim is to add love and compassion in society, to add meaning to human life and to pass on virtue to the kids who become the flagbearers of kindness.”

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There is a school for 400 children in Solan, Himachal Pradesh, called Southvale: The World School. The school is run by young MBAs. The owner is Rishabh Chopra and the technical operations are under Snigdha Parihar. It emphasizes on education, but more than that, a moral social code with compassion towards all. “We believe in raising a league of future generations that is socially, morally and intellectually awake,” they say.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, they experimented by asking each one of their children to feed and foster street animals. Now they have made it mandatory for each child and staff member in the school to foster a stray animal, be it a dog, cow, cat or even birds. Their debates, elocution, research-station projects, etc., are centred around animals. The children are taught to save a little from their food and kitchen waste and keep for the fostered animal fed. “To make this act sustainable and institutionalized, we have developed the ‘Log Book’ activity which is drawn from Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit. It works on the basic principle of cue, routine, and reward. The cue is a stray animal, the routine is feeding and logging the activity in a book. The reward is a mention of the student in the circular for parents, and a Facebook post with the picture of the child carrying out the deed.” The aim is to add love and compassion in society, to add meaning to human life and to pass on virtue to the kids who become the flagbearers of kindness.