Wild Shaale - Transforming Conservation Education for Children Living Around India's Parks

India – with its extraordinary wildlife despite increasing urbanisation – is producing a generation of people disconnected from nature. This disconnect is amplified for people living in and around our wildlife reserves who regularly face conflicts with wildlife resulting in crops, livestock, and property damage. Over the years, our studies have revealed that children in high-conflict villages are often deeply affected and potentially hold negative views of the wildlife.

Wild Shaale (Shaale means ‘school’ in Kannada) is a unique environmental and conservation education program that aims to foster interest and build awareness in rural children living in proximity to wildlife.

Wild Shaale is a first-of-its-kind scientifically-conceived conservation-education program. It focuses on children between the ages of 10 and 13 who live around wildlife reserves. We have created content to teach children about their local wildlife and environment. This also includes some local conservation issues to improve their knowledge, empathy, and conservation attitudes.

Our sessions incorporate various learning styles (art activities, role play, story-telling, games, and presentations). We provide all the materials to ensure that every school is ensured equal resources.

We believe that Wild Shaale is a fundamental building block to involving children in conserving India’s wildlife and wild places. They play an increasingly important role in influencing perceptions, attitudes and tolerance towards wildlife.

Globally, environmental-and-conservation education is instrumental in increasing people’s awareness, changing perceptions and attitudes, and encouraging public support for wildlife.

Wild Shaale is designed to educate children on coexisting with wildlife and coping with loss. Our implementation and evaluation approach provides insights into the best-designed practices for conservation-education programs. Since 2018, we have reached 407 schools and 20,350 children around 8 wildlife reserves in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

The Wild Shaale curriculum is customisable to different regions, highlighting unique animals, plants and ecosystems. With your support we hope to expand the program to several new wildlife reserves across India in 2020. Our hope is that every child that learns to love the wild, will become an agent for change in their families and communities to make informed choices and co-exist with nature. Help us make this a reality.

Any donation made is an investment in the children and the wildlife around them.