Wild about welfare : Digital education helping animals.

 I was introduced to the concept of the Wild About Welfare digital education program, or e-learning project as we called it within the team, one rainy afternoon just a week after I joined Wild Welfare. After being told about this unique idea and familiarizing myself with what had already been produced, I became hugely invested in the project for two reasons; firstly because I would be able to utilize my own knowledge and skills while being creative, and secondly because I could see the huge potential the program had to have a positive impact on animals and the people that care for them.

Meeting and training animal care staff during project visits is a vital part of what Wild Welfare does, but this program would enable us to reach more facilities than ever before. The opportunity to up skill animal care staff can really impact animal welfare, by giving carers the knowledge and understanding they need on topics such as nutrition, health, enrichment and behavior. 

As I got stuck into the project, I remembered vital aspects of my daily routine from when I was working with captive wildlife and added some of these elements into the program. Tasks such as completing a visual health check including assessments of beaks, claws, scales, behavior and even fecal matter of each animal, were essential components to add in to the already detailed program. 

When I came on board with the program Wild Welfare’s then executive director Georgina Groves, had already composed the animal welfare information and module layout – I think if I had been faced with blank sheets of paper to fill with all I knew about animal husbandry and welfare, I wouldn’t have known where to begin. My task was to refine each of the eight learning modules, make changes where needed and then liaise with Dr Heather Bacon from The Jeanne Marching International Center for Animal Welfare Education (JMICAWE), who was partnering with us on the project, to make further additions. The additions proved numerous, as the total number of pages grew from 115 to 155!

The other aspect to the program was to develop the interactive quiz-type activities which compliment the learning documents for each module, helping to consolidate learning. Having (virtually) met with the e-learning specialist Dr Louise Connelly from JMICAWE, I got to work on creating questions which would test the learner while Louise started creating the activities involved for each module. We included multiple choice questions, picture matching activities and even the inclusion of video.

After we had some working prototypes and the world had gone into lockdown, I reached out to more than 40 contacts from various animal care, zoo and conservation backgrounds across the world, to act as a virtual trial group to work through the program for us. They picked a module or two to complete, filled out an anonymous survey and gave us additional feedback. It was a wonderful feeling to finally share this project with people and get opinions on it. We received a lot of very positive feedback and some really useful comments, which in turn helped us further shape the program into its final version. 

Once everything had been checked for accuracy by Dr Heather Bacon, and proof-read by an army of volunteers, we were approaching the launch date and my anticipation mounted. I had been working on the program for nearly two years and it had involved so much effort and collaboration to make it the best it could be, so I couldn’t wait to finally share it.

On sharing the news, our social media channels have exploded with people sharing the program, recommending it to friends and colleagues and expressing their interest and excitement at getting stuck in to learning. As a team we are thrilled with the response, but now the program is launched in English, I have turned my attention to the next step – translations. 

Wild Welfare works in more than 10 countries around the world so to reflect our international impact, the program was always destined to be translated into multiple languages, particularly those spoken in our project countries. We hope Japanese will be the first translation and when it is, we look forward to being able to share it with our partners in Japan. 

I was reminded of a quote from Nelson Mandela while working on this program – “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” Helping to create the Wild About Welfare program has been full of challenges, but I am so pleased that as a team we managed to conquer them all and produce something that can empower animal care staff now and in the future.