Highlighted Campaign for April 2009
Help Stop the Misery of the Dancing Bears: “Li-bear-ate the Dancing Bear”
The life of a dancing bear is one of unbelievable misery and it gives me great heartache to even read about it. But there are organisations out there trying to help where they can. One such organisation is Wildlife SOS who are working in India to not only rescue and rehabilitate bears, but also to try and solve the problem. They recognise that bear dancers (Qalandars) are very poor and many feel that if they had another way to survive they would. So Wildlife SOS is assisting them with start up costs and training to enable them to earn a livelihood in another way.
Also they are subsidising costs so their children can go to school, and providing vocational training to their wives so they can contribute to the family income too. This all helps to make the bear rescue efforts sustaninable, with the hope of breaking the cycle of dancing bears permanently. For more information on this worthwhile cause, go to:
http://www.wildlifesos.com/ibr/Dbears/bdancebody.htm or
http://www.hsi.org.au/index.php?catID=164