Pioneer school children learn to prevent future pandemics

Ten year old Yuteng studies at an ACTAsia pioneer school in Guangzhou, where we teach our unique Caring for Life curriculum.

He recently won a competion for a poster, themed ‘Say no to wildlife consumption’. Here’s the video his parents helped him make to explain how he feels.

Yuteng is one of hundreds of children at his school learning how to avoid triggering a pandemic as serious – or worse – than COVID-19 in future. He has learnt that hundreds of millions of wild animals are intensively farmed for commercial purposes every year, and he understands that these animals are a breeding ground for viruses.

In Caring for Life class (CFL), Yuteng and his friends learn the fundamental life skills of empathy, compassion and responsibility for people, for our planet and for all the species we share it with. They learn that animals are sentient, just like us, and that eating wildlife presents serious dangers to public health.

Our CFL curriculum for schools is helping children understand that people and nature are connected. We use scientific evaluation to measure the difference that ten lessons in Caring for Life made for children.

Children showed:

  • lower rates of aggression in the classroom and at home
  • more responsibility for themselves within their own community
  • better understanding of others’ emotions
  • a growing sense of fairness
  • motivation to help others.

ACTAsia’s goal is to teach Caring for Life Education to 10,000 children every year.

For just $15, you can sponsor a child for a year 

“We were humbled by how much these children have learnt when we viewed their posters,” said Isobel Zhang, ACTAsia’s China Director for Children’s Education. “Not only are they great artists, but by browsing the gallery we can see the vivid emotion behind their designs. These children are the future, and their artwork is a hopeful sign that with Caring for Life Education, it CAN be a better future.”

Our gallery of posters illustrates just how much children like Yuteng can learn through Caring for Life Education.