Cutting Edge

Every year in Uttrayan hundreds of birds get injured due to cutting edge of kite threads. We have been getting calls every year since we have started the rescue operation. In year 2009, we took this issue heads on. We launched a campaign called ‘The Cutting Edge’ declaring a war against the cruelty due to kite flying. A mega awareness campaign with huge hoardings, a great media campaign, and exhaustive door to door campaign left the people of Surat city shaken. To meet the possibility of huge rescue calls as a result of campaign we launched a major rescue operation.

And emergency control room, first of its kind was setup. This control room was designed to manage the nitty-gritty’s to ensure that none of the call gets missed.

It was ensured that help line number was never found busy or engaged or waiting by unique jumping line strategy. The control room was having excellent IT support by with specially designed software called ‘CALL CATCHER’. This unique system gives us the ability to mobilize the rescue team in average 3 minutes 20 seconds and to perform rescue in 12 minutes over the entire 372 square kilometers of Surat city with 300 rescue team members and 17 area centers.

Every year this system gets evolved with the raising demands of rescue calls. In the year 2009 we received 156 calls in two days. And with our continuous efforts by awareness programs, in 2013 we received 377 calls in three days. To meet up to this increasing demand our system gets evolved every year.

In 2013, we moved this system online and gave unique interface to public to see the calls statistics with geo location of running calls.

Every year number of people joining our special rescue team gets increased. Every year number of other organizations joining the work gets increase due to inspiration from our work. We support/assist and mentor them as and when needed.

Continues innovation

Creative activism has been our strategy in this field which has made the system which got accreditation by award from Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations (FIAPO).

But, we do not restrict ourselves on rescue. We run an awareness campaign in full pace resulting more than 10000 people took oath to not to fly kites. More than 15000 school children took similar oath and they enrolled their parents about the same. This has resulted, our awareness campaign to reach to thousands of families.

Since year 2012 we have started our own operation theater specifically designed and setup for birds injured due to kite threads. We deployed expert veterinary doctor’s team and also many helping hands from the same field. This made ideal treatment to be possible immediately to the bird and improved the survival ratio to a huge extent. As per our commitment to transparency we also broadcast live video streaming of our operation theater for people.

Social Impact

And with everyone’s surprise, one of school L. P. Savani at Adajan declared 14th January as open school day and they welcomed school kids to come to school and enjoy the festival in school. But the enjoying festival did not mean to fly kites, but rather students joined PRAYAS’s rescue team to rescue the birds and doing the treatment. As the number of students that turned up was high compare to calls to attend, they used their own creativity and invented an activity of making things from waste kite threads. This activity had hidden agenda of removing kites threads from surrounding societies which would cause injury to the birds. Students came up with the brilliant idea to make creative things from the waste kite threads that they had collected.

This does not end here;as students and school management arranged an exhibition of their creations and in the exhibition they invited all parents. They appealed everyone to shun kite flying. This was a great success and heartwarming story of which we are very proud. College students, school students, common people, institutes and organizations for the first time found a platform and a way to stop this cruelty through this campaign.

Almost all the schools of Surat invited us for spreading this awareness and in the span of just two years thousands of school students of primary and secondary level are now aware about the issue and are saving birds by not flying kites.

The WAR still continues, and we keep sharpening our swards with creative activism to fight against millions of cutting edges and we are sure that in near future we will change the people to enjoy festival without cruelty.