In a self-motivated campaign that began in September of 2007, Mr. Kartik Shah, a young naturalist from Mumbai, India, has been making school kids in and around his city aware of the dolphins' plight and motivating them to become themselves active for dolphins and their realm, the ocean.

He has sent many pictures drawn by kids to our Virtual Sea, and several essays can be seen under
http://yod2007.org/en/NewsEvents/News/Mumbai_Initiative.html

He is also the author of the story "Belfino - the Bottlenose Dolphin", which was illustrated by a friend of his and can be found in the
World of Dolphins section of our website.


Here is his take on the initiative so far:

"It all started with an article I read in UNESCO's magazine "World of Science". The YoD campaign led by an international organisation to save dolphins worldwide really got me interested and I decided to check at its website in order to find out more about the Dolphin Diploma which was being offered.  Of course I knew what dolphins were and which dolphin species were found in Indian waters, so doing the online quiz was no big deal for me, but I never knew before the visit to the website that they were so much at threat not just in India but globally.

I realised that I had the potential to do a lot more to save dolphins in my region and my focus shifted from merely obtaining the Dolphin Diploma to doing something very significant for the survival of dolphins. How I gradually became the official supporter of the YoD campaign in Mumbai, India of course is history!

I had my goal and ideas how to reach it. I knew I had to reach out to as many young people as possible in a manner that would appeal to them to get the message across. I think I have always been a convincing instructor so I decided to campaign for saving dolphins by having interactive discussions with school students. I also chose to target the student population because conventionally young minds are easier to mould and influence.

Of course it wasn't a very encouraging start. I personally visited school heads after making appointments but they would just turn down the proposal to have a presentation/discussion on saving dolphins, either under the pretext of time constraints or simply because such a program would not "help" them in any way with their regular curriculum.
I wasn't disappointed. I chose to be optimistic and told myself "If everybody thought like me, then probably there wouldn't be a YoD in the first place and there wouldn't be the need for me to take the initiative to campaign for the survival of dolphins. The fact that there is ignorance and lack of interest among people, not just regarding dolphins but also other creatures like Tigers, Elephants, Whales etc. is good enough for me to accept that as a challenge to bring about at least a small but significant change in my individual capacity."

In this lag phase I rather chose to contact eminent people from India through CMS to enrich myself with what work has been already done in India to save dolphins, what ongoing projects there are and to obtain maximum regional information. I also started planning my presentation by creating PPT slides based on all information that I had until then. Of course later I received DVD's from TUI, CMS and WDCS to make the presentations even more interactive and effective.
I also made the best of this time to reach out to my closest friends to see if I could have any assistance from them and fortunately I found two good friends who agreed to help me in my efforts in their own unique ways.
While my old friend from school Ms. Shivani Kapadia helped me with my children's story  "Belfino-The Bottlenose Dolphin" by illustrating my story beautifully, Ms. Bhavini Gohel, my friend from university helped me by agreeing to make dolphin soft toys at minimal cost for gifting purpose during campaigns. She later also hosted a campaign for tiny tots with me. Later on we received stuffed dolphin toys from TUI so we didn't need to make any on our own but her initial contribution cannot be ignored.

Slowly things started brightening up. Some schools agreed to have a presentation and I did that pretty successfully for the next two months. I started in September 2007 and two months down the line I'm satisfied to bring to your knowledge that:

- I've done 10 campaigns (see below links)

- We have reached 1500+ people so far.

- The average age of campaign participants is 12

- I've done all our campaigns without any advertising or publicity or without being dependant on local media

- I started it at my cost and then all the help from CMS, WDCS & TUI flowed in which eased things for me

- I've done the campaigns in English, Hindi as well as Gujarati and if required I’m ready to do it in any other Indian or international language that I’m fluent with

- The first campaign outside Mumbai (Bombay) was at Pachmarhi in the province of Madhya Pradesh

 

Where do I see all these efforts going? Definitely not into the salty sea!

 

I'm sure many people have been made aware about the plight of dolphins and many are trying to spread the word throughout their surroundings. I hope many young children and schools are inspired to receive the Dolphin Diploma and would also like to adopt dolphins with WDCS just as I have done myself. I hope people with young children will now think twice before going to ocean parks where dolphins are kept in captivity and will also prefer to use noiseless means to watch dolphins in the wild. I hope this inspires the schools to encourage dolphin-watching excursions for their students in North India or East Indian waters.

I hope children enjoy studying science and EVS subjects more after actually being updated about the most recent developments in the world on conservation science. I sometimes feel very happy when I receive mail from some student to whose school I’ve been for a particular campaign telling me that he/she read about dolphins’ deaths on the shore in Iran in newspapers or found that dolphins sleep with one eye open in an encyclopaedia. The interest is kindled and it needs to be fuelled constantly.

Where do I head from here?

This is not yet over! Thankfully, the YoD has been extended to 2008. I hope to meet and convince more schools to host educational programs that will help create a better sense of conservation amongst the young of our society. I hope to be personally able to take some cetacean conservation course for enriching my own knowledge. If I’m sufficiently equipped intellectually I can convince and persuade even better. I hope to travel to north India and perhaps even to Andaman alone or preferably with researchers from India on field trips to acquire experiences on dolphin conservation. But of course reality demands that I complete my academic obligations and fulfil my commitments in my personal life so it’s not going to be picture perfect but who wants it picture perfect anyway?

As they say "Where there's will there's a way!"

I have the will I will find my way!"

Here are a couple reports, including numerous pictures, that Mr. Shah wrote up for us in his truly dedicated fashion:

Link to "Campaign at Ajinkya Apartments, Mumbai"

Link to "Campaign at Pupil's School, Khar"

Link to "Campaign 2 at Ajinkya Apartments, Mumbai"