Even if my information helps 1 animal because of the changed behavior and knowledge of a single human, my goal is achieved.
1. Tell us about your background and journey
My name is Banica Atri, and my background and journey are quite simple. I did my basic schooling at Villa Theresa High School, Mumbai, and was an all-rounder during my school years, with a higher inclination towards sports. I played Basketball, Throwball, Swimming, and Speed skating at the state level and Shotput, Discuss Throw and Javelin throw at the National Level. 11th and 12th were in Anand Niketan Satellite, Ahmedabad. During that time, I had taken up the Science stream with Maths, but slowly realized that it wasn’t the one for me because my sports were slowly getting compromised.
After an in-depth conversation with my parents, I decided to shift to Psychology as that was a major interest of mine and my family was very supportive of the decision. I then got into St. Xavier’s Ahmedabad for the course BA Psychology and had quite a road of adjustment in front of me, in the form of academics as well as sports. In academics, I had to adapt to the paper format of humanities, which involved very lengthy answers in contrast to the short, to-the-point numerical and answers that I was used to.
There were also a lot of subjects I was dealing with for the first time. The first semester I scored quite low (68%), but got the hang of the subjects as well as the format. In sports, shotput and javelin was not supported in college, thus I shifted to boxing and MMA, but not competitively.
I interned in various places during my college time as well as garnered certifications through strenuous training in CBT. I volunteered as a teacher in multiple places for multiple months. I was exploring the different fields of psychology during that time, from CBT to Animal Assisted Therapy to Counselling, and then Covid hit. Since physical experiences couldn’t be taken, I started to search for online training and courses and found myself drawn to Clinical Hypnotherapy and Psychoanalysis. I attended multiple offline trainings and garnered the certification as a Level 3 Clinical Hypnotherapist.
During this time, I was also pursuing my Masters in Clinical Psychology, from St. Xavier’s Ahmedabad, which was completely online. Side by side I also started the feeding and rescuing of animals which motivated me to start “They Matter”, an initiative to spread more knowledge and awareness related to stray animals. After my Master’s ended, I also pursued a 1-year Diploma in Animal Welfare so that I could have more in-depth knowledge before I started spreading the knowledge.
To be honest, I’m still figuring out what to do and where I belong, but I guess that’s the beauty of life, questioning, adapting, and learning what your purpose is, as long as you keep going.
2. In addition to your work with animals, you have a background in clinical psychology. How do you integrate psychological principles into your animal welfare practices, especially in the context of animal-assisted therapy? Can you say a few lines in the context of animal-assisted therapy?
Clinical Psychology is the subject I have my Masters in.
Animal Assisted Therapy is a form of therapy that involves various animals (specifically dogs) to help with behavioral and social aspects. It is different from Service animals on the basis of their purpose and training. Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) involves trained animals, such as dogs or horses, as part of a therapeutic treatment plan to improve physical, social, emotional, or cognitive functioning. It's a complementary therapy provided by professionals to enhance well-being.
Service animals, on the other hand, are highly trained to perform specific tasks for individuals with disabilities. These animals are not considered pets; they work to assist individuals with tasks directly related to their disabilities, offering practical support. In summary, animal-assisted therapy is a therapeutic intervention that includes animals to promote well-being, while service animals are trained to perform specific tasks to aid individuals with disabilities in their daily lives.
Animal Welfare is something which has to do with the safety, nurturing and ethics related to our stray and other animals.
As we study in psychology, that every human being is different, and what might work on one individual might not work on another. Similar is the case in animals. The more you work with them the more you realize how important is it to “LET THEM COME TO YOU, RATHER THAN GOING TO THEM”. Just like we wouldn’t want a stranger all in our personal space immediately, similarly neither do they.
Thus, when people sometimes get excited on seeing a cute dog and go to immediately pet it, it’s actually not right. The correct way is to kneel or stand at an approximate distance and call them to you. They will display some observable behaviours which will quite clearly display if they are comfortable with you or not.
Another major psychological aspect you learn is fear in animals. How it is so different in every animal, how the nature vs nurture affects the fear in animals, how can our behaviour affect their fear.
One very important psychological principle used in both, general animal welfare as well as Animal Assisted Therapy is reinforcement. Some people choose to use negative reinforcements to discourage undesirable behavioral traits, while some people focus on positive reinforcements, thus providing these to encourage desired behaviors. This is a very important factor in therapy, as there are some behaviors that if an animal exhibits, that might scare people, and it’ll have the opposite effect.
For example, if a dog jumps on someone in excitement. People who like dogs might be okay with it, but people with a fear of animals might get more scared and might not return, in turn getting more fearful of dogs. Thus, these animals have to be trained to behave in a particular way. Through training their instincts are made stronger (Eg. K9 dogs, Bomb squad dogs, therapy cats etc). Here, their very strength is developed even more through behavior alterations and training.
Thus, the study of psychology sets a base of understanding to comprehend animal behaviour behave with them, and train them accurately. But this being said, if one wants to work with animals, it is penultimate to understand the animal behavior and work with an experienced person before tackling it alone, for the safety of both, the animal as well as the human.
3. Your experience includes being a Social Media Specialist. How do you leverage social media to create awareness about animal welfare, and what strategies have proven effective in reaching a broader audience?
Social media is omnipresent at this point, whether we like it or not. It can be used to indulge or to create. It is proving to be a dopamine overdose to a high majority of people these days because of its easy attainability and unmonitored usage. But if used correctly, it is the strongest tool in the bag, because of its reach and ability of absolutely anyone to be creative.
There are a lot of strategies people use to reach a broad audience, some being quite controversial like getting into online dramas, making clickbait videos, buying online followers etc, and while these ways do provide a 1-time surge or reaching a broader audience, I feel it is quite short lived and result oriented.
To spread knowledge and awareness in a way where the goal is not the number of followers you have, rather, what impact is your information making, is a process of consistency and determination. It is not always very exciting and sometimes the numbers don’t waiver that much. This is the moment when one has to look objectively and analyse what can be improved rather than getting de-motivated.
This process requires a lot of trial and error, analysis of what did well and what didn’t do as well, making information available in a form that is simple to absorb and remember, making it as point-to-point format rather than a long passage format. In short, people do want to learn, but they do not want to sit for 20 minutes trying to understand what in the world are you going about. They want the information crisply provided to the absolute important points, while boiling away the other aspects..
On the other side there are people who watch videos to gain the complete insight of the subject. So how do you do both? I feel the best way is to keep it clear in the title of the videos if the video is in detail or a summary, since every platform now has ‘shorts’, the longer and in-depth video can be cut up to be ‘40 seconds of pure information’.
While producing content for “They Matter”, the only major points I keep in mind are
“Would I watch this?”
“Is this giving the information that the title suggests?”
“How can I break it down even more to make it simpler?”
If my idea passes these 3 questions, then I go ahead with it. If I feel that it is an idea which needs more clarifications, then I add something else later on( a post, a video etc).
Thus, it is a very adaptive process. It’s not always fun. You might or might not go viral and gain thousands of followers overnight, but that’s when you keep pushing.
4. Can you share a memorable experience from your work with "They Matter" that reflects the positive change or impact you've been able to make in the lives of stray animals or the community?
While I work on developing “They Matter” further, I’ve already had multiple experiences, both good and bad in this small time frame itself. The good experiences provide gratification that my actions have some effect no matter how small. My motto has always been “Even if my information helps 1 animal because of the changed behavior and knowledge of a single human, my goal is achieved”
On the other hand, I’ve also faced a lot of hate and backlash from people who do not believe in the idea that we should co-exist with nature, that humans are above all and have the right to end whoever they want to, and the media only painting the animals in negative lights and changing the narrative really doesn’t help. These types of backlashes and hate, make me more determined because it shows how deeply insensitive some people have become. It strengthens me to stand up for the animals in an even louder voice and let me tell you, It feels Amazing.
Many people have reached out saying they’ve learned how to feed dogs better, understand their behavior, or read basic body language, and that right there is a great start!
*Trigger Warning: Discussion about Mass Killing Of Dogs*
One example of a positive experience that I can remember is when earlier in this year a lot of hate was propagated towards stray dogs throughout the country and there were mass killings of stray dogs in Kerela, where dogs were illegally picked up and poisoned or beaten or buried alive. Some people even started shooting them or burning them alive.
This broke down the entire nation’s spirit, and people started questioning if Kerela really was worthy of being called “God’s Own Country”, if they couldn’t even live peacefully with God’s creatures. Activists, humanitarians, and people with a conscience all got together to hold peace rallies and protests, and boycotts against Kerela.
This was the time when my morale was broken. But instead of feeling angry at Kerela, I felt empathy for the people who lived there and had no part in these monstrous acts. The kids who played with animals, the people who cared for them, who were stuck in that place, not only witnessing all this but also being hated by the country. This is when I created a post and penned down my feelings related to this topic.
The number of people who reached out to me after that post, not just in the comments but also in the messages was overwhelming. They felt seen, they expressed gratitude, and expressed how traumatizing all this was for them. Because of that post, many other people got together in the movement to help or support these individuals. It was a very unfortunate time.
You can read about it on my page if you want to (https://www.instagram.com/p/CizrFc8s9ZN/?img_index=1)
Another instance I can remember is when in Ahmedabad I witnessed a local dairy person who owned a bunch of cows, mercilessly beating them. The dairy industry as we know is one of the worst industries. Most of the local small scale cow owners collect their cows during the milking time and leave them loitering during the rest of the time so that they don’t have to pay for their food.
Thus, the AMC set a rule that all loitering cows would be seized and the owner would have to pay a fine to get them. This is what happened. The person carelessly left his cows open, and someone informed him that the AMC was coming to seize the cows, this is when he called his group and they all started beating the cows to scare them away to a shelter.
I was fuming, I recorded the entire episode, while fighting with them, and then put up a detailed post online tagging the authorities.’ Thankfully it reached the right people and his cows were seized and he had to pay a particular amount of fine too.
5. What advice would you give to individuals who aspire to contribute to animal welfare and environmental protection, based on your own experiences and learning from running "They Matter"?
- There are a lot of things to take care of when working for animal welfare, I would like to boil it down to the 10 most important things to remember if you want to work for animal welfare.
- The thing that matters the most when working in Animal Welfare is courage. You have to have the courage to stand up against what’s wrong, no matter who it might be against.
- The second major thing to know is “Know Your Laws”. The laws are on your side, you need to use them wisely.
Read the:
· IPC (Section 428, 429 and 506),
· The PCA laws,
· AWBI guidelines.
You should know these points by heart or have a printout with you. Because if 5 people support what you do, 7 will always be against it.
- Try being calm in situations so that you can rationally tackle them. In these situations, every decision must be made keeping the animals’ safety and welfare in mind.
- In relation to dealing with animals, always have an experienced individual or vet that you can contact in case you spot an injured or hurt animal or have been injured.
- If you are working with stray dogs, remember to always be updated on your Anti-Rabies Vaccine (ARV). It is a safety precaution. And keep the dogs updated on their ARVs as well as contact local authorities for their neutering and spaying to control the population.
- Food is a very important aspect in building trust with an animal. Learn about what is good for the animal and what is not and inculcate the food in your feeding rounds
- When and if you start feeding, keep it regular and consistent. If you can feed once a week, then feed once a week but make sure you do not miss it. The animals also form a routine and inconsistency can be confusing. So, form a routine and stick to it, no matter how minor It might feel.
- Always document everything in case of an altercation. Record a video, take photos, audio recordings, etc. Whatever it may be always have it on record, because even though the law is with us, the members of the law who we have to complain to might not always be, thus always have proof.
- Always let a new animal approach you, rather than you approaching them.
- And finally, just start. Animals are endlessly loyal and amazing creatures who need to be protected. Wanting to participate in animal welfare is the first step to take. You’ll meet like-minded people who support you throughout the way. Just keep going.
And you can directly reach out to me if you feel overwhelmed at @They_Matter_Official on Instagram!
6. What has been your biggest challenge, and how did you overcome that?
My biggest challenge has been comparison. In today’s world where social media is so openly available to see what others are doing, it is very human to see what are others are doing and compare it what you have been doing. We see many people having their life figured out, with a good salary, a good job, and turn to what we are doing. That had been quite common with me.
Since I am involved in multiple fields that are quite different, I sometimes felt lost (sometimes still do), but you in that moment you have to learn to take a breath, focus on why have been doing what you have been doing and look at just the next immediate action to be taken.
For eg, when I feel overwhelmed with everything that I have left to do, I open some of my old works (thesis, assignments, old goals, bucket lists, pages etc) and focus on how many of the things that I wanted I have achieved, and how I just need to focus on the next step to get where I want to go.
Another thing that helps me out is writing. Writing down goals, breaking down goals, prioritizing those goals accordingly, writing steps for each broken goal, and then focusing on the top 2.
It feels like a lot some days, but that’s when you take a deep breath, and remember, 5 years ago you were probably stressing out about something which doesn’t matter now, and 5 years in the future this particular moment will become that event.
So, it’s okay. It’s natural to be stressed in order to work hard to succeed, but not at a level where you forget the essence of this very life. Everything we do is a part of our life, not our entire life, so let’s not forget to do things that make us feel alive and live in the present moment while running in the race of getting ahead.
7. Looking ahead, what are your professional aspirations and goals in this industry, and how do you plan to achieve them?
I would be lying if I said I have it all figured out related to what I want and how I want it. There are some aspirations and paths I am still figuring out, there are a lot of paths with intrigue me and I want to learn more about, and there are some paths I am sure of achieving.
One of them is to work on a PhD thesis related to Human Behaviorism. I also want to work on my Clinal Hypnotherapy and help people with it., along with making “They Matter” more mainstream. I have also written a couple of Self-Help Journals which I wish to slowly start publishing.
I also love to learn new things and aim to keep gaining knowledge and practical exposure to integrate them into my skills, to be able to provide the best final product from my side. But no matter where I am and what I plan to achieve, the main thing I want to focus on is living and not just surviving.
Bio-
Hello, I'm Banica Atri – a dynamic individual with a diverse array of passions and professional pursuits. Armed with an MA in Clinical Psychology, Level 1 CBT, and Clinical Hypnotherapy, I seamlessly blend therapeutic approaches for mental well-being. As an Open Water Diver and National level athlete, my love for the underwater world and athleticism converges with my commitment to Animal Rescue, making a positive impact on both human and animal lives.
A wildlife documentation and environmental protection enthusiast, I actively raise awareness about these crucial issues. Beyond this, my journey involves exploring Dream Analysis with Lucid Dreaming, expressing my artistic side through amateur photography, and contributing to content creation and social media operations. Engaging in meditation research, particularly at an all-India level, underscores my holistic approach to health and wellness. Founding "They Matter," I aspire to make a meaningful difference in the lives of both people and animals, embodying the spirit of a dreamer and believer committed to positive change.
I also wish to help people live their lives mindfully and enjoy it just a little bit more. Life, I feel, when lived in the moment, becomes a tapestry of unforgettable experiences—a collection of precious snapshots strung together by the thread of our presence, which many of us forget to notice.
Interviewed and Edited by - Arunangshu Chatterjee
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