Antonia López Palacios and Kathya Amaya have teamed up to head our new program, Teaching Children Compassion for Animals. Antonia is our new Education Coordinator, responsible for planning the educational activities, and Kathya is doing most of the teaching. Over time we hope to recruit more volunteers to participate in the teaching activities.
Antonia (Tony) López
Tony is a retired preschool teacher. At the Official Normal School of Guanajuato, she studied to become a primary education teacher, earning a degree in preschool teaching. For 34 years she worked at rural, suburban, and urban preschools in the Guanajuato municipality. Her last job was at the Beatriz Ordóñez Acuña Kindergarten in Las Teresas, where she worked for 15 years.
Throughout her career, Tony encouraged children to respect all living beings. For the past decade she has been active in several animal-protection groups, volunteering with them, rescuing dogs and cats, and participating in anti-rabies campaigns as her resources and schedule have permitted. When she could not rescue animals herself, she helped others care for rescued pets or provided financial help to cover initial expenses.
Tony has given talks to children, ranging from preschoolers to high school students, on such themes as animal care, rescue, vaccinations that pets need, respect for animals, and how to help them. She has volunteered at sterilization campaigns sponsored not only by us, but also by CECA (the city’s animal control center) and CAISES (the state’s public health service). She has participated in adoption events, animal festivals, pet-adoption walks, worktables, marches, and legislative forums focused on improving and promoting animal protection laws. She has served on the municipality’s Council for Animal Protection.
Tony is married and has two adult sons. Besides volunteering for Amigos and other animal-welfare groups, she currently runs a pet taxi service to help people transport their pets.
Kathya Amaya
Kathya has a degree in communication sciences from the La Salle Bajío University. She has extensive experience in acting, and has participated in various theatrical productions, as well as in audiovisual productions for governmental institutions. She has been an announcer and host in corporate, documentary, and television projects. Thanks to the courses that she took in corporal expression and her search for physical and mental well-being, she developed a program of sports culture, which she launched at the Instituto Guanajuato, enabling the students to change their notion of physical education by integrating it into their daily activities.
During the past three and a half years, Kathya has often volunteered at our sterilization campaigns. For her, and for her husband and teenage daughter, respect for animals and caring for the environment are core values. As a family, they take care of the environment and try to dignify the lives of all beings. They regard their pets as members of the family without humanizing them and while respecting their nature, and they have an unwavering emotional bond and commitment to their care.