Support to schools and universities

ORCA offers continuous advisory support to pre-school, elementary and high-school teachers, psychologists and pedagogues to apply animal welfare contents in their work. Since 2007/08 school year, ORCA has been conducting the programme of professional development of participants in education called ‘’Animal welfare and us’’, certified by the national Institute for improvement of education. This programme has been conducted by ORCA educators – teachers, psychologists and pedagogues with extensive experience in working in education and who have participated in national and international animal welfare education trainings and training for trainer seminars.

The teaching units we offer are developed in a way that they can be applied in class or other educational work. The units are supported with different materials that make adopting knowledge easier (info sheets, photos, video materials) and all contents were created in cooperation with workers in education, in consultation with pedagogues and psychologists and through practical educational work.

If you are a pre-school or school teacher – visit our web presentation dedicated to animal welfare education. There you can download our teaching materials free of charge and read experiences of other participants.

Support to biology teachers

ORCA offers advisory support to biology teachers in elementary and high-schools for replacement of laboratory animals used for conducting practical education.

The animal welfare law („Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia nr. 41/09) that came in force in 2009, legislates that experiments on animals can be performed in educational purposes only if they don’t cause: pain, suffer, fear, stress, injury or death of the animal; in other words it is allowed to perform only observational practical education on alive animals (Article 44, Paragraph 2).

In order to encourage implementation of contemporary methods in education, we provide continuous support and advisory services to employees in education, as well as needed educational resources

Program “ORCA education”

Program “ORCA education” has been conducted since 2002 with the aim to integrate animal welfare education in the formal education (curricula) of the Republic of Serbia.

In order to achieve this important and ambitious objective, we have implemented different activities:

  • Developing proposal for integration of animal welfare education in education programmes of all education courses and school programmes
  • Supporting publishers to develop textbooks and teaching materials that will meet the requirements of animal welfare education
  • Training teachers, pedagogues and psychologists for implementation of animal welfare programme in their work on a daily basis
  • Providing continuous advisory support to teachers, pedagogues and psychologists for implementation of animal welfare programmes
  • Educational work with children and youth and their active participation in the area of animal welfare through continuous motivation and encouragement (workshops, competitions, different actions)
  • Regular informing of general public about animal welfare and its benefits for people, animals and environment and motivating citizens for active participation

Find out more about animal welfare education in the Euronet TV show here

ORCA important achievements:

  • ORCA’s professional training programme “Animal welfare and us” certified by the national Institute for improvement of education trained over 2500 teachers and professional associates in Serbia (2007-2010)
  • Animal welfare education became part of the pre-school programme and particular subjects in elementary school education – biology, nature guardians, and civil education (2005-2010)
  • Over 5,000 children participated in ORCA workshops aimed to develop respect, care and responsible relationship towards animals (2002-2010)
  • Based on ORCA’s advocacy initiative, “raising awareness about the importance of animal protection” became part of general aims of education in Serbia (The Law on the Foundations of the Education System 2009)
  • We developed Guidelines for systematic integration of animal welfare education in the curricula at all educational levels, aimed for relevant state authorities (2010)

Our activities are implemented in cooperation with teachers, preschool, elementary and high-school school professional services (pedagogues and psychologists), professional associations, universities and international organizations.

…working for our children to become informed, responsible, active and compassionate people.