Are you a “barefoot” animal-fosterer?

You probably are, and I salute you.

This is a MUST (100x) see: http://www.sadroo.com/0089.php (please watch until the end, it’s very, very inspiring and will revolutionise how we look at people and what they are capable of achieving).  I’ve watched it twice, and I’m still in awe.

I love how Bunker Roy defines a “professional” – someone who has competence, confidence and belief, and you get there through the dignity of labour, hands-on. And you don’t need a piece of paper to certify your competence. You are certified by the community you serve.

It makes me think of all our animal-fosterers and animal-caregivers who are what they are because of hands-on experience. You are all professionals in your own right. Who cares about a certificate? You have something better than that – hands-on experience and the knowledge within.

As Bunker Roy says, “Don’t look for solutions outside. Look for solutions within and listen to people”. The answers and the knowledge are all there, within us. How enlightening, how true. I believe that they are, and the less corrupted we are by modernity and the less divorced we are from Nature, the closer we are in touch with this knowledge and wisdom within. An example of this would be how animals can detect poisonous food, a village child may also have this instinctive wisdom, but a city child would probably happily eat it…and get diarrhoea or worse! Urban humans are too far divorced from that wisdom within. We are corrupted by modernity.

And listen to the part where the 12 year-old village girl answered the Queen of Sweden. My mouth dropped and I found myself clapping with the audience!

And if I may quote Bunker Roy’s parting words: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you and then you win. (a quote by Mahatma Gandhi)

As a person who is in the field of education, I am SO inspired.

Are you?

Watching this reminds me of the time when I started on my PhD in Mathematics Education. At a time when qualitative research was frowned upon in Malaysia and not recognised to be of the same standard as statistical research, I insisted on doing the former and I hunted for a foreign university that would let me do my research qualitatively. I was going to listen to my students  and learn from them (and these are students who had failed in our education system, who did not qualify for the government schools, and now, have come into college for a second chance). My research was on them, for them and WITH them. And even while I was halfway through my research, I discovered, as Bunker Roy says, that I already had the solutions and answers within, and so have my students. So, I’d definitely attest to what Bunker Roy says – it is totally true. We all have the solutions within, and if we look hard enough, we will find them.

So, what I do, when I am in college and not running AnimalCare, is to get these s0-called “failures from our government schools”, back on their feet, and churn them into engineers. And what I keep seeing, semester after semester, is that these students have the potential within, only it has been dampened by a failed education system, but that potential is still alive, waiting to be brought out, when given the opportunity.

So, when friends ask, how can you expect to turn these hopeless students into engineers? I say, if they have a will, we’ll find a way.

So it is the same too, when after college, I run AnimalCare. People write to me, crying for help, “I’ve found a litter of newborns, help! I don’t know how to look after them, can you please take them?” No, I cannot take them, but I’ll teach you how to do it – are you willing to learn?

You are?

Great!

Here’s how…and in no time, you’ll see a “barefoot” animal-fosterer who, in turn, inspires and teaches others, to do the same.

I was, after all, also a barefoot animal-fosterer with Cow, Bunny and Pole, and it’s all thanks to another barefoot animal-fosterer from the local shelter who passed his (barefoot) knowledge to me.