Floyd u Shabu l-Annimali tar-Rahal
“Floyd u Shabu l-Annimali tar-Rahal” is the first project by Subculture Animal Friends which consists of a cartoon DVD and a full colour booklet in Maltese Language which has been distributed free to all year 4 students, aged 9 yrs of age, attending State Schools with the permission of the Ministry for Education.
Subculture Animal Friends is composed of 5 members namely Ray, Carmen & their 9 yr old daughter Karen Micallef, Charlotte Bellizzi & Ray Schembri. The idea of this project was initiated by Ray Micallef following a conversation after a rehearsal with Ray Schembri. Since all members have a fond of love for animals, the idea was to combine original local music by Ray Micallef and Ray Schembri bands together with the art of Charlotte Bellizzi and the writing of the book by Carmen & her daughter Karen, who has contributed a lot so that the project would be suitable for children her age.
Basically the cartoon DVD deals with the story of a dog, the main character, named “Floyd”, by no doubt named after Pink Floyd the author’s favourite band, who during one of his walks with his master named Roger, around the town he lives in, he encounters various animals which have been abandoned and others which are not being properly taken care of. The story evolves in the book, whereby in a more detailed manner, the young readers will learn how “Floyd’s” new friends ended up in their particular situation and eventually what action has been taken so that their situation has been seriously taken care of and therefore their lives have changed for better. Since the project is aimed for young readers we decided that a happy ending should be ideal, besides we want to get the message that there are solutions for our abandoned friends.
The aim behind this project is to raise more animal awareness in young students through education, creativity and music and hopefully get the message also to their parents and families. We hope that this will help to lower the number of abandoned animals and also try to eliminate animal cruelty.
On Friday, 7th May 2010 at 10.00 am, we held the official launching of this project at the hall of Metanoia Theatre, Triq id-Dokkiena, Luqa. For this event there were approximately 400 students from different state schools, together with Mrs. Michelle Muscat, Mayors and members of Local Councils, officials from the Animal Welfare Department amongst the invited guests who honoured us with their presence. Subculture Animal Friends would like to thank all those who in any way or another have contributed towards this project and helped so that such could happen. For this activity, we appreciated the fact that the young students responded to our appeal and voluntary contributed by donating a tin of cat or dog food which eventually was donated to a local sanctuary as an aid.
Funding for this project came in from a 3 day Subkult Festival which was held in Paceville with the free participation of 15 local bands from genres diverse as acoustic, rock, thrash, death metal and punk. Nine local councils namely Tarxien, Marsascala, Santa Lucija, Mqabba, Qrendi, Attard, Sliema, Dingli and Imsida have entrusted us since the beginning of our project and contributed towards it. A special thanks goes to our main sponsor Borg Cardona & Co. Ltd. of Balzan importers of Royal Canin.
The book and the dvd are based on an original idea of Subculture Animal Friends, written by Carmen Micallef. The DVD music is that by local bands Subculture and Lord Adder, whereby the design of the characters, both on the book and dvd are by Charlotte Bellizzi. Ray Schembri has contributed to animate the voice of the characters on the dvd.
To date all the dvd’s and books have been distributed both in Malta and Gozo, and we must admit that the feedback from the students was really positive. We have also distributed a number of dvd’s and booklets to Puttinu Cares, Rainbow Ward and Fairy Land in Mater Dei. In the coming days we shall distribute also copies to Inspire.