Photo: Delhi Tiger Fest
In 1999, Sanctuary began to tell children stories of how saving the tiger saved entire ecosystems, and in return the forests now filter and feed over 600 rivers with pure water and stabilise our wobbly climate in the process.
Kids for Tigers is an educational outreach programme that touches the lives of rural kids living right next to the tiger and urban kids across the country. The tiger, a metaphor for all of nature, is a rallying point for children working to safeguard their own future. Going way beyond conservation education, the programme is dedicated to ‘leaving kids with a better planet and leaving the planet with better kids’.
Inspired through workshops, nature walks, camps and tiger fests, a whole new generation of dedicated conservationists has emerged through the programme. Long before it became the rage, Kids for Tigers children found themselves invited to meet Governors, Prime Ministers and Environment Ministers, sports stars and celebrities, editors and journalists, where the young convinced the old that protecting nature is the best way to protect current and future generations.
Since its launch, Kids for Tigers has snowballed into one of India’s largest mass movements to save the tiger impacting one million children.
In keeping with Sanctuary’s core belief that nature is self-repairing, Kids for Tigers communicates the positive hope that all carnivores and their co-inhabitants will spring back to safe numbers provided we leave nature alone long enough to allow its self-repairing mechanisms to take effect. Working with educationists, we inform kids of the umbilicus between biodiversity, forests, water, and climate change.
Photo: Ripan Biswas
Kids for Tigers introduces children to nature in a gentle, reassuring and encouraging manner. Our battery of events help kids imbibe the truth that nature is a source of life and not merely a resource.
Children targeted through the programme come under three categories: grades 1 and 2 are given introductory lessons on our flora and fauna; grades 3 to 5 are taught about inter-connections and adaptations with nature through food chains and ecosystems; and grades 6 to 8 are introduced to the concept of conservation, its necessities, challenges and solutions.
Once schools are enrolled on the year-long programme (email amandeep@sanctuaryasia.com to learn more), teachers are engaged in the Environmental Leadership Workshop to incorporate them into the Kids for Tigers curriculum.
Interactive sessions
Tiger fests
Save the Tiger campaign
Nature exploration
City camps
National camps
Kids for Tigers places a very high value on ethics, curiosity and team-building. The programme encourages children to engage with the elders in their life by sharing with them a sense of wonder and reminding them that soon it is the young that will take charge of planet Earth.
We take strength from the late Frederick Douglass, who wisely advised: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
Photo: Amrut Naik
Kids for Tigers has been recognised for its significant impact on public opinion and support for nature and wildlife conservation in India. The programme has received backing from the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, the Armed Forces, Project Tiger and many NGOs and individuals involved with conservation across the globe.
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Photo: Saurabh Sawant
Meet some of our past Kids for Tigers, whose commitment to saving our wilds continue to determine their choices to this day.
