Have you ever seen those sad adoption ads, the ones that talk about all the poor, suffering animals, the ones that tell you to adopt or donate? I hate those ads. They pull on your heart-strings and make you want to help, even though you can’t, even though it's telling you exactly how to help, you just can’t, and it makes me feel just so damn guilty. Every time.
Since I was four years old, I have gone to religious classes once a week during the school year; these classes are divided by grade. Each one has a teacher, textbook, and sometimes even homework. In eleventh grade, each class picks a topic that interests them in an area they want to improve, whether in their community or globally. In the past, these projects have always been about improving…show more content… We spent months planning exactly what we were going to do, how we would do it, and how to explicitly tie our ethics into it. The project became focused on raising awareness on the conditions of animal shelters. Millions of shelter animals are euthanized every year (in the USA alone) for various reasons such as: lack of staff, lack of funds, lack of supplies, or lack of space. We hoped to encourage people to adopt from shelters rather than going to breeders, by introducing them to animals up for adoption at the shelter; to get them to see how much these animals needed our help, and how normal people could make a difference. The entire class marketed as we tried to raise awareness and attendance for the event; everyone was encouraged to attend, both Ismailis (people from my specific sect in Islam) and Non-Ismailis. We had an informational session for those interested to learn more about our project, where we played games and made toys to donate to the shelter; our goal was to raise attendance of the main event. At the shelter, the attendees first came to a short session led by the shelter, where they explained why the participants should help and different ways for the participants to support the animals. We walked everyone through the shelter; they played with the animals using the toys they made
