7 months ago
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Over 30 children of The Grove School, Alwarpet, watched successful amazement arsenic a spectacle unfolded earlier them: a six-foot-tall, lifelike elephant moving its caput from broadside to side, raising its trunk, and blinking astatine them.
The animatronic, ‘talking’ elephant Ellie is portion of an empathy-building circuit by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India. She has present travel to Chennai and visited the schoolhouse connected Thursday (December 4, 2025). The inaugural aims to amended children astir the cruelty faced by elephants, utilizing the mechanical jumbo.
Unveiling the elephant – made of fibre and with a silicone trunk – astatine the school, Nanditha Krishna, chairperson of The Grove School, said, “Ellie’s beingness volition promote thoughtful discussions connected compassion and respect for each surviving beings. The children volition larn astir the cruelty faced by elephants.”
Ellie comes with a backstory: she is portrayed arsenic a circus elephant who was separated from her parent astatine a young age. “We person seen elephants astatine temples and camps and person known that they were not treated well, but we were not alert of the grade of cruelty they endure. Ellie has helped america understand, deeply, the kinds of hardships they face,” said Ananya, a Class 8 pupil astatine the school.
Pointing retired that this workout volition foster empathy successful children, the main of the schoolhouse S.M. Sujatha said that it volition person a large interaction connected students successful gathering compassion towards animals.
“Children people gravitate towards animals. Ellie, the animatronic elephant, helps children admit that animals acquisition emotions — pain, fear, joy, and emotion — conscionable arsenic humans do, and that they merit to unrecorded freely and peacefully,” said Meenakshi Narang, manager of Elementary Education astatine PETA India.
Since May 2023, Ellie has visited 7 cities, spreading the connection that elephants should not beryllium utilized successful circuses, rides, oregon different cruel practices. The lifelike elephant volition stay successful Chennai until December 19, visiting much than 8 schools crossed the city, aft which she volition caput to Nashik.
