Liberty Mulkani
My first experience with humane education was in fifth grade. Ms. Ayres, who taught the enrichment program in my local school district, introduced our class to the shocking realities of product testing on animals and factory farming. I had always loved animals and couldn’t justify participating in these cruel industries after learning the truth – from that point on I decided to go vegetarian and avoid products that were tested on animals. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my experience in Ms. Ayres’ class was the impetus for my path towards humane education.
After graduating from university with a theatre degree, fate brought me to California where I finally came back to my animal protection roots and landed a job with the Animal Legal Defense Fund. I assumed that this path would eventually lead me to law school to work on behalf of animals, but something kept holding me back from pursuing that goal. While searching for further educational opportunities I stumbled across the Institute for Humane Education (IHE) website. I remember reading through the description for the M.Ed. Humane Education program and feeling like it had been written for me! I knew immediately that this was the program I had been looking for.
Since I began the M.Ed. program so many exciting things have happened. After my first semester I moved back to Vancouver, B.C., and became involved with Power of One, a fledgling humane education program at the Vancouver Humane Society (VHS). As part of the Humane Education Committee at VHS, I was able to help develop and deliver our new program to dozens of high school classes in the Vancouver area over the past year. We were thrilled (and terrified) to accept our very first booking at a Jane Goodall Roots and Shoots conference in May 2006. Since then the program has continued to grow and flourish, with many exciting possibilities on the horizon. We will be hosting our 2nd Sowing Seeds workshop this October and are also looking forward to the opportunities that might arise from a new Social Justice course that has been added as an elective in the B.C. grade 12 curriculum.
In February 2007 I was honored to be elected as President of the VHS Board of Directors. I am extremely fortunate to have a board that sees the value in humane education and is keen to support the further development of our program. Through my work on the VHS board and the Humane Education Committee I hope to educate as many people as possible in my community about social justice issues. As I look back on all of the wonderful things that have developed since I began the IHE M.Ed. program, I can only imagine the exciting things yet to come.
August 30, 2008 - 8:30 am to August 31, 2008 - 4:00 pm | Location: Farm Sanctuary
Live your values. Change the world. Choose MOGO! Let your life reflect what truly matters to you. Discover ways to choose MOGO (the most good), act on what's most important to you, and build a better world. Come to our life-transforming weekend MOGO workshop, th...
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