Reaching out to the young

Last Sunday, I was invited by the Subang Jaya Buddhist Association to talk about kindness to animals to their Sunday School children.

Children?

Those little humans who’d prefer to run around all over the place?

Yes, those kind.

OK, they are our future, I remind myself. This, I must do.

However, talking to children has never been my forte, so if I’m invited to talk about anything else to children, I’d always recommend my friends who specialise in “handling” children, especially those who run all over or stare at you wondering why on earth they have to sit still to listen to you when they can be playing with their i-pads, but it’s about kindness to animals, so I have to go.

I owe this to the animals.

Initially, it was to speak to a whole big hall, from 3 year olds to 17 year olds. Uh-uh, no please, we can’t have such a big age group – it’s too diverse and won’t be effective. I have to use different language when speaking to the different age groups. Just one group, please, either the little ones or the big ones. So, they said the little ones have their own activities, so this round will be for the biggies.

 The little ones prepare to go back to their classrooms after the morning prayers.

 Hmm…so this will be my target audience?

 I’m often reminded by Dale Carnegie’s words: Everybody loves a good story. Your story. Not anyone else’s. Yours.

 Some of the parents were sitting at the back and I could they were interested.

 Kudos to the teachers for organising this talk.

I’m not sure how effective it has been but normally after every talk, there will be some children writing to me to say they have rescued a little kitten or puppy, or their parents have allowed them to adopt a pet, or that they like my books and when they grow up (and the parents cannot say “no” anymore), they would want to rescue animals too, etc.

That’s where I sit back and say to myself, “Hmm…time well spent.”