The Feldman Ecopark started to give unique for Ukraine lessons of tolerant attitude towards animals. The purpose of lessons, which started this summer, is to teach children and adults right behaviour that will not harm and will not scare an animal.
The lessons aroused great interest from the very beginning. “We are just staring to establish practice, which, perhaps, will be called “lessons of kindness” for children or “lessons of tolerance” for adults. Both children over 3 and adults, who display the same interest in the lessons, take part in this activity,” the head of humanitarian programmes of the Feldman Ecopark Iryna Yavorska tells.
She drew attention to the fact that visitors who come to the Ecopark and other zoos, not often act properly with animals. “In particular, we explain how to correctly enter the petting zoo, how to make animal to drew attention and not to be scared, how to get into contact with it. We show how ridiculously human behaviour may look from the other side of enclosure. This makes a strong impression,” Iryna Yavorska emphasizes. “We tell that an animal may be subject to stress, it may be hurt. These seemingly simple things should be explained, however, only we give similar lessons in Ukraine so far.”
The lessons are given on weekend for groups consisting of 25-30 persons. Up to 100 persons may attend these 45 minutes long lessons during a day. The first lesson is the basic information. More advanced programme will be given in the Horse Complex and in the petting zoo for interested children.
“The culture of communication with animals is not developed in our society. The visitors of zoos are always trying to put their hands into enclosures, to take a photo using flash, of course, and to make noise. Definitely, the animals are subject to stress, and therefore will not have friendly mood in the future. That is why we teach, first of all, that if you treat an animal with love and understanding, it will certainly return this attitude to you,” the educational psychologist Mila Nikolaenko is sure.
“First of all, we teach children not to be afraid of an animal, to communicate with them so that the animal not to hurt a child, and a child not to hurt an animal,” the educator Anastasiia Mykhailova tells. “We teach how to touch an animal properly, how to feed it and what to give. As there are a lot of people who are trying to push everything available in poor animal’s mouth, not thinking of what is good food for an animal, and what is bad.”
