This past year, God has been speaking to me about using animals as a way of sharing His love.  In line with what he has been teaching me about the life of each person being precious, I have decided to call this project, Precious Stones.

First however, a little more information about Animal Assisted-Therapy and Animal-Assisted Activities which you may or may not have heard of. We can call these AAT and AAA. Jointly, we can refer to AAT and AAA as Animal-Assisted Interventions (AAI). Confused?

Well, Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) is generally done in association with a health professional as part of a specific treatment process.  For example, a physiotherapist may require a handler and her dog to visit with the specific goal of helping an injured person use a damaged arm by brushing the dog.  Results are documented and evaluated. This is just one example of hundreds of ways animals can help with therapy.  Animal-Assisted Activities provide opportunities for motivational, educational, and/or recreational benefits to enhance people’s quality of life. These can be carried out by a specially-trained professional, para-professional or trained volunteer, and an animal trained for the specific tasks involved.

Animal-Assisted Interventions (AAI), which incorporate both AAT and AAA, are not just a modern concept. In the 1790s in York, England, an experimental Quaker institution for the emotionally disturbed gave patients rabbits and poultry to help them learn self-control by caring for dependent animals. In 1860, Florence Nightingale found animals particularly useful as “excellent companions for the sick, for long chronic cases especially.” The most famous example is in 1962, when Boris Levinson, a New York psychotherapist, discovered that his dog, Jingles, helped him gain confidence and communication with children in his work.  In a children’s psychiatric hospital in the 1970s, a dog called Skeezer proved that with proper training “a dog can help open pathways into the minds and hearts of disturbed children.”

Animal-Assisted Interventions continue to grow and develop and are being used in many ways across the globe to help different types of people including: emotionally damaged and traumatized children, hospital patients, the elderly, prison inmates, the physically-challenged, drug addicts, autistic children, school children, the terminally ill, those with HIV/AIDS and chronic illnesses, the criminally insane, juvenile offenders, orphans and children in foster homes, and those in disaster situations. In fact, the list could go on and on! It has been found that animals can help children in a multitude of ways. Animals can help break the cycle of violence in the lives of emotionally disturbed children.  AAIs can also help children: laugh; learn to care for others; get their minds off themselves and their problems; take responsibility; get outdoor exercise; have companionship; learn about their worth and value; receive tactile stimulation; relax; relate to living creatures; grow in self-esteem and confidence; learn about creation and their creator; receive unconditional love; talk about their problems; and receive certain health benefits such as stress reduction. What wonderfully creative and practical ways to share the love of God!

The goal of Precious Stones is to reach emotionally damaged children using the unconditional love that can be found in the companionship of animals. Because of their experiences, some children find it hard to trust or open up with people, but find they can do so naturally with animals. I plan to do this in two different ways.

Visits from a Doggy Pal

One way is to make visits with a dog to various places including schools, hospitals, orphanages and facilities for sexually-abused girls. We currently have two dogs who would be suited to different tasks. Jasper is a year-old rough collie who has had a year of excellent initial socialization. This next year will be critical in his training as a therapy dog and will give him the necessary skills to visit people in facilities such as nursing homes and hospitals.

Isaac is a 7 year old, well-socialized pug who would need training for more specialized therapy work. However, he already has the personality to be suitable for certain visits such as school visits.

Visiting Us

The other way is to use our own accommodation as a centre to which children can make supervised visits to spend time with the animals, holding, touching, stroking, grooming, feeding, hearing stories about and talking with the animals. By helping look after the animals, children can grow in new skills, confidence, and empathy with other living creatures. Using either of these methods, counseling can also be provided in a gentle way for those children who need it. Now that my AAT/AAA course has been completed, I intend to embark on a counseling course aimed specifically at reaching at-risk youth and children here in Asia.

Who Are These Children?

Chiang Mai is home to many orphanages. 120,000 AIDS orphans live in the north of Thailand alone. 20,000-30,000 of Thailand’s 2 million prostitutes are under the age of 18 and as young as 11. Many of these girls are sold unknowingly into the sex trade by their own parents who think they are buying for them a better way of life and education. These children suffer sexual, mental and physical abuse. With the gradual weakening of the family unit and increased materialism, divorce is on the increase and producing young casualties. Thailand is increasingly a home to migrant and refugee children who have been witnesses to horrific events. While Thailand sits in many Western people’s thinking as a ‘holiday destination’, it is also home to hundreds of thousands of children in need of unconditional love, acceptance and help in rebuilding shattered self-confidence and self-worth.

For more information, please contact Michelle.