A recipient of the Nari Shakti Puraskar, Dr Mini Vasudevan was brought up in a household without pets, but had always felt a deep connection to animals since her early childhood. When she was 11-years old, she turned vegetarian after witnessing a chicken being severed while she was playing with her cousins in a farm.
The pivotal moment was when she witnessed dogs being treated inhumanely by being confined in inhabitable and filthy kennels, while she was volunteering at the place where Coimbatore Municipal Corporation (CMC) was performing their Animal Birth Control (ABC) program. The impact that Dr Mini’s work has made is huge and we bring to you the interesting journey of Dr Mini and her work in the field of animal welfare.
A telecommunications engineer by profession who has served over 27 years in the corporate telecommunications sector, Dr Mini is a passionate animal activist who felt connected to animals, right from childhood. Mini strongly believes that making a difference is as important as making a living and considers her work with animals extremely gratifying. She has been involved with animal welfare activities for several years both in India and abroad.
While she loved animals all her life, it was only when she was in the US that she learnt about the nuances around animal welfare. It was also very sad to see surrendered pet animals being put down if they could not be rehabilitated within a prescribed period, she reminisced. This led her to establish Humane Animal Society (HAS) in 2006 which has been very actively involved in the Animal Birth Control (ABC) / Anti Rabies Vaccinations (ARV) program in Coimbatore through MoU with the corporation among other activities like adoptions, rescues, rehabilitation and treatments of stray and abandoned animals.
As far as challenges go, the increasing human-animal conflict in a materialistic and human-centric world with human population exploding beyond control is perhaps the most difficult one. Disturbing trends of abuse and exploitation are becoming the norm and people getting conditioned to such trends makes it difficult and challenging when we want to uphold justice to the voiceless and change the way animals are treated as sheer commodities without valuing their sentience.
The youth have the power to change attitudes and mind-sets. They are the torchbearers who can change the archaic outlook that still prevails in the major part of our country with respect to animals and their rights.
We will need to be aware of the delicate balance that the nature has in sustaining life in this planet and any development must have the goals aligned to nature and ensure that the delicate balance is not disturbed to the extent possible for sustainability.
In her concluding remarks, Dr Mini said, “Making conscious life-style choices that result in happier and healthier lives should be the goal and, in that respect, reducing, recycling and reusing must be given a lot of importance.”
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