Far too many tales of animal cruelty and abuse have come out of Indonesia in the last few years, from horrific stories about how dogs are butchered for their meat to zoos where the animals are starved and mistreated.
But there are many Indonesians out there who care deeply about the welfare of animals, such as the kind children in this viral story. Posted by a veterinarian in the city of Blitar in East Java, it tells the tale of a group of kids who came together to try and save a stray cat.
https://www.facebook.com/sekar.yudhya/posts/2103335439716920
My patient this afternoon.
6 children brought the cat to the clinic using a “stretcher”
They said the cat had fallen into the river.
They pooled their Eid pocket money to bring the cat here.
And I was not willing to accept payment from them.
Seeing these kids love of animals and their efforts to bring it here really warmed my heart.
Posted on Monday, the story quickly went viral and has been shared over 1,600 times, with netizens praising the kids for their kind hearts and generous spirits.
Sadly, a second post from the veterinarian says the cat passed away. But what the children did next was perhaps even more moving.
https://www.facebook.com/sekar.yudhya/posts/2103508456366285
As Dr. Sekar explains in the post, the children came back to the clinic because they wanted to give the cat a funeral and pray for it to be at peace. Not only that, they used the money they still had (since she hadn’t accepted their money previously) to purchase some food and drink for the funeral which they then gave to the people around the clinic (as part of a Javanese tradition called bancakan).
The vet ends the post by saying, “Such sweet kids”.
Mahatma Gandhi once said: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way in which its animals are treated.” Indonesia obviously still has a long way to go in that regard, but these children certainly give us hope.
