Code Campassion: Creative Coding with Pixel and Python to Raise Funds for Animal Welfare

 Hello there! It's been a while, hasn't it? Now, from the name of this blog, it's about the welfare of animals.

Let me get straight to the point. Currently, there are more than 12 MILLION stray animals in the Philippines. Even WORSE, there are about 3,000 reports of animal abuse, and those are just the cases that WERE reported, so there could be WAY more cases. 

Recently, I went to a fund raising event hosted by Megan Uyao, founder of Likha's Cradle, where this was a concern.

Here is how it went:

The Event

The event was pixel art coding, and it was called “Creative Coding with Pixel and Python.” It was a fun event, and it started with a presentation by Megan herself and a few others whom she invited, including a Ms. Ilene Riego (who is a friend of my mom, by the way). She talked about her ADOPTED dogs and how there were a few dogs in her neighborhood that were being neglected and even abused. Honestly, I felt really bad for those dogs.

The ones she adopted were from an animal shelter, not the pet store.

After that, there was an icebreaker. Jolo Simeon (one of the special people invited to host the event) gave each of us one of four animal cards: dog, cat, chicken, and cow. I got a chicken card.

Depending on what card you got, you had to make an animal sound from the animal on the card. The goal was to find table mates depending on the sound of the card.

After that, we were introduced to the software known as “Imagilabs,” a pixel art coding website that uses Python as its coding language.

It was pretty easy to learn, but manually typing every line of code is hard, and it's even more stressful when bugs start showing up (I salute everyone who does programming for a living).



After being taught the basics, there was a lunch break. 

Then, we were introduced to the founder of DevCon Kids, Pam Ros Damarillo. She talked about why programming is REALLY important because most jobs today require programming skills. She asked the whole class, “Why is programming important?”

I raised my hand and answered that it was important because it can solve problems really fast. Another kid answered that it could also be used for entertainment.

After that, there was another icebreaker. This time, all the teams were given one task: Draw Pikachu.

Each team had to have all its members draw one picture, and each person on the team had to draw one of four parts. My team's picture was not the best, but hey, you don't need to “win”; you just need to have fun.

After that, we continued our coding session and moved on to basic animation, which was pretty hard for me to understand.

We were then given a task to make a basic animation, and some people already learned functions that weren't even taught yet. 

I made a dog that blinked, and it took me almost TWO HOURS to make this basic pixel animation. I actually needed help from one of the teachers to animate it. 

After everyone's animations were done, most of us presented our works (not everyone could show their work due to time constraints). We were all given special awards; I got the “Determined Learner Award” because I "faced the challenging task head-on,: while others got awards like the “Creativity Award” and a few others. Then there was the final picture, and here it is right here:

Why Should We Care About Stray Animals?

There are plenty of reasons why you should care about stray animals. First of all, most of the animals go to the pound, where they wait for someone to pick them up.

It looks good on paper until you notice that no one really comes to pick the poor animals up.They are fed, but it's not the best treatment. If no one picks them up in time, then the pound “euthanizes” the animals (when a stray animal is about to die due to old age or other reasons, they inject anesthesia to make them die peacefully).

As I mentioned before, there are MANY reported cases of abuse or abandonment among pets, and there may be even more cases that have NOT been reported yet. That's not even mentioning rabies. 

Most stray animals are NOT treated, so they can definitely become health hazards in some situations. That's why we need to help them.


What You Can Do Right Now!

Fortunately, YOU can do something to save these animals.

What can you do, you ask? Well, there are a LOT of things you can do.

First, you can stop buying pets from stores and instead adopt animals from your local animal shelter.

Another thing you can do is support teams that rescue stray animals, like PAWS (the Philippine Animal Welfare Society) or supoort the organization that hosted the event I just told you about, Likha's Cradle.

They host events that support these kinds of shelters by directly donating the money they get from you paying the entrance fee for these events (for the latest event, the money was sent to SWS, or Strays Worth Saving, to help a stray named Lucky).

Or, you can simply adopt a stray animal from the street. Mind you, you have to have them treated first, but you’ll be supporting something much more.

Ok, I’m Interested. Where Do I Support These Organizations?

Here are some of the shelters you may want to look into to adopt stray animals:

Biyaya Animal Sanctuary
Location: Purok 4 Perea Street, Brgy. Palumlum
Facebook page: Biyaya Animal Sanctuary
PAWS (Philippine Animal Welfare Society) Location: Katipunan Valley, Loyola Heights, Quezon City Website: paws.org.ph CARA Welfare Philippines Animal Kingdom Foundation Location: 175 Lopez Rizal St. cor. Samat St., Mandaluyong City Website: caraphil.org Animal Kingdom Foundation (AKF) Pawssion Project Location: No. 8 Purante St., Barangay Cubcub, Capas, Tarlac Website: akfrescues.org Pawssion Project Mandaluyong Animal Shelter Locations: Bulacan and Bacolod City Website: pawssionproject.org.ph Help Mandaluyong Animal Shelter Animals of Love and Light Location: Mandaluyong City Facebook: Help.MAS.Dogs Save Animals of Love and Light (Save ALL) Philippine Animal Rescue Team Location: Various locations around Metro Manila Facebook: Save Animals of Love and Light Philippine Animal Rescue Team (PART)

Likha's Cradle will announce the next fund raising event to support animal shelters soon, so please wait patiently as they plan it.

Thanks for tuning into this blog. Have a nice day, fellow blogsketteers!

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