Students call for action over cruelty to animals

Following the recent spate of reports on cruelty to animals, the Lorenzo Gafa` boys secondary school in Vittoriosa yesterday organised its first animal awareness day on the school grounds.

Students took their pets to school for the activity, aimed at creating an awareness that animals have feelings too.

The event was spearheaded by Andrew Azzopardi and Elizabeth Pisani, the teachers of the personal and social education class, with the full collaboration of the entire school and the local councils of Kalkara and Vittoriosa.

"We realised that the students were very aware of these incidents and from our class discussions we felt that they wanted to bring their pets to school to express their love for animals and aversion to cruelty," Mr Azzopardi said.

"The students also wanted to pass on the message to other schools to follow suit and raise awareness about cruelty to animals.

Mr Azzopardi said that in the Cottonera area, as elsewhere in Malta, there were people who organised illegal fights for dogs, cocks and even fish.

"We have students whose parents could somehow be involved in these fights and we hope that they can pass on this message to their parents to stop the cruelty," he said.

In preparation for this day, all the forms had different projects which included a visit to the home for abandoned dogs, the Island Sanctuary near Delimara, a video forum and field work on animals in the locality.

A number of shows were held during the day - with rare dogs strutting their stuff and police dogs showing off their skills. There was also a display of pets and exotic animals.

The day reached its highlight with a declaration read out by students` representative Jamie McPherson.

The declaration said that all the students were concerned about media reports of cruelty to animals and appealed to the authorities to take action.

The students declared that they were against any form of cruelty to animals and in favour of seeing the authorities help animal organisations to care for these animals.

The declaration also encouraged other schools to take similar initiatives and reminded children that animals deserved all the love they could get.

Mr Azzopardi hoped that this activity would become an annual event.