It often gets overlooked that compassion and empathy make the world go round. Humans and in fact, all living beings can only truly prosper when they are in harmony with nature yet our society has yet to come to terms with this. The way to tackle this problem is to get to the root of it. Humans and animals can co-exist and that is a reality that still needs to be fully seen. Whenever we think of kindness and empathy towards animals, we think of Ayesha Chundrigar and her Foundation, ACF Animal Rescue. Recently the foundation announced the launch of their first-ever children’s book titled, ‘Masti Finds a Home’. The storybook is a visual representation of what ACF does while teaching kindness and empathy to the children who read it. ‘Masti’s story is available in English and Urdu so that children can resonate with the message in both languages and people can understand that showing compassion towards animals is always the right way to go.
The story ‘Masti Finds a Home’ is about a stray dog who struggles to find food and water on the streets until children of a loving family find him and change his life completely. With their love for animals, the children’s actions encourage the neighbors to be kinder to animals as well which causes a ripple effect that benefits all living beings in the long run. The author of the book Sadia Ahmed specifically created the story based on ACF’s work over the years in encouraging people to be more tolerant of street animals. Highlighting everything the foundation has been trying to teach over the years with illustrations and all, the book has already been well received by other non-profit organizations as well.
At the book launch, Ayesha Chundrigar and ACF Animal Rescue invited children from the Kiran Foundation where Chundrigar read aloud the story herself and the kids received some ACF capes as well, highlighting the message of the story that anyone can be a hero just by saving one life. “These (books) are the perfect way for anyone to start a dialogue on compassion, other living beings that share our earth and tolerance for all. Lessons we so desperately need in society” stated the CEO of ACF.
