New NYC Program 'Unleashes' Young Animal Welfare Advocates

A new initiative launching in New York City is inspiring adolescent girls to unleash their inner strength and ambition to help find sustainable solutions for curbing rates of homeless animals entering city shelters.

Called "Unleashed," this pilot program will officially launch in middle schools in New York City this fall, but will already have a track record of having rescued more than 40 dogs.

The program's mission, however, is not simply to take in and adopt out strays, says Stacey Radin, the founder of Unleashed. She aims to encourage young girls to work together and develop innovative action plans to help prevent issues like cruelty and overpopulation that lead to an increase in strays.

"I don't want girls to think that simply rescuing is a solution to this problem," Radin said. "Yes, we need to keep rescuing, but I want them to be thinking about this as a problem, and to be considering strategic types of solutions. These girls will become the social change agents that we need to make this happen."

Radin, who has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, initially began developing Unleashed over the past few years with the sheer aim of sparking confidence and leadership in adolescent girls.

"Early influences shape a women's perception of her power, and if you trace back powerful women to their beginnings, there is something in their early experiences that impacted their abilities to be powerful and to stand out, to be a non-conformist," she explained.

Radin spent 15 months conducting focus groups with teenage girls of all ethnicities, in different socio-economic backgrounds, and found a common passion running throughout the groups: animals and animal welfare.

"One of the things they can wrap their heads around is animal cruelty and homelessness," Radin said. "They can say, 'I can help a vulnerable animal. Even I could impact an animal's life in some way.'"

Forty-five girls, coming from three middle schools in Manhattan and Brooklyn, will now have the chance to do that starting this September, when they will meet once a week for the 12-week Unleashed program.

Guided by Unleashed facilitators, called "leads," the participants will learn about animal welfare and then design events, campaigns or plans that offer some kind of solution to the problems they have addressed.

Enthusiasm in the focus groups was running high for the pilot program.

"Every girl in the focus groups was like 'I want to do this, I want this to come to my school,'" Radin recalled. "There aren't a lot of options for girls these age, who often become the forgotten population. They are too young to volunteer at a shelter or at a rescue organization."

The girls also seemed to appreciate that the program made them the primary decision makers, Radin says, noting how community service projects their schools arrange might not appeal to their particular interests and leave them disengaged.

Animal welfare, however, seems to strike a chord with these pre-teen and teenage girls.

"This is something they feel strongly about and girls them a window into the larger injustices of the world," Radin said. "The curriculum of Unleashed is really a social changing program, that is providing these girls the skills they need to take action about this important issue."

Though Unleashed is only in its pilot stage right now, its warm public reception offers hope for expansion in the near future. Already, Radin has been asked to serve on the United Nations' Task Force Working Group for Girls; she was also asked to participate in the New York Women Foundation's World Leadership Day.

Radin's own fifth-grade daughter, though unfortunately not eligible to be an Unleashed girl, offers a prime example of how other young girls stand to be impacted by animal welfare education.

"She does research on puppy mills and makes banners and puts them up all over her school," Radin said. "She hates circuses and zoos and is just so aware of the injustice of how some animals are treated. It's amazing to see how when you talk with girls at a young age like this and expose them to these issues how they internalize it and take action on their own."

Story by Amy Lieberman, originally published August 2010 on Zootoo.

Photo 1 via Zootoo, Photo 2 by Marcos Bonfirm via Flickr.