Research by the RSPCA revealed that nearly a quarter of school children aged 10-18 have witnessed animal cruelty and neglect on social media.  Generation Kind, the charity’s biggest ever education and prevention programme, was developed to help address this.

Toby Perkins MP attended the RSPCA’s launch event at the House of Commons and met with Chief Executive Chris Sherwood to hear about its ‘Generation Kind’ initiative, which will help teach compassion to new generations and work to protect animals in Chesterfield.

Toby said, “The people of Chesterfield are true animal lovers and animal welfare is one of the biggest issues that my constituents contact me about. IT was shocking to hear from the RSPCA that
that nearly a quarter of secondary school children have witnessed animal cruelty and neglect on social media and I welcome this new initiative to educate children on why animal cruelty is wrong.”

Generation Kind is the RSPCA’s biggest ever education and prevention programme and hopes to create a generation of children who treat animals with kindness, compassion and respect. Generation Kind will consist of a series of projects working with youngsters at risk of offending, animal care sessions for children in care and also talks and competitions for primary and secondary school children designed to make them think about animal welfare.”

Toby added, “The Generation Kind programme is a brilliant idea and I encourage schools and parents to visit the RSPCA website and learn more about getting involved. With children as young as ten are reporting that they have seen serious animal cruelty on social media then it needs parents to be aware and vigilant about monitoring what their children see online, but I also call on companies such as Facebook to do more to remove these videos and images from their platforms.”

More details about the RSPCA Generation Kind campaign can be found at: https://www.rspca.org.uk/whatwedo/education