December 2023
Dear Animal-Kind Friends,
This is the only holiday email request you'll get from us this giving season. All year we show you why we need your support, and more importantly, what your donations can and do accomplish. With respect for your time and intellect, I won’t inundate you at the end of the year, when most of us are already feeling overwhelmed with requests for help. If you want to know more about how your donations are used, what they’ve accomplished, and what the needs are, please read this newsletter and check our website for more info. And we do hope you will donate to Animal-Kind International during this giving season because
Kindness to Animals has no Boundaries
MONTHLY DONORS! I hope all of you have received your end-of-year email message from me with the total you donated during 2023 and what your donations have accomplished. I sent an email to each of you during the 1st week of December, so if you haven’t gotten yours yet, please check your spam folder and/or get in touch.
PET FOOD FUNDS
We’ve established three Pet Food Funds. Why? It’s become more and more difficult for our supported organizations to provide adequate and nutritious food for dogs and cats in their care (for horses and donkeys too) because like everywhere, prices in African countries have increased dramatically. Yet donations in 2023 have decreased. And without an ample supply of nutritious food, physical and emotional healing is impossible. Our 1st responsibility to our animals is to make sure they have plentiful good food available (the 1st of the 5 Freedoms, Freedom from hunger and thirst: It is crucial that animals always have fresh water available, as well as a suitable diet that keeps them healthy and energetic). That’s why we and our Partner Organizations have placed such a high priority on raising money for these Pet Food Funds:
The AKI-Uganda SPCA Pet Food Fund: AKI Partner Organization, Uganda SPCA, is caring for over 350 cats and dogs at their two shelters and with a significant drop in donations, along with a large increase in costs across the board, the USPCA is having a very difficult time raising the funds they need to feed so many hungry animals. Yet if they turn an animal away, the animals’ fate will be even worse—life on Uganda’s streets is no life for a cat or dog.
The AKI-Sauvons nos Animaux Pet Food Fund: We created the AKI-SnA Pet Food Fund about a year ago and since then, it’s provided cat and dog food for the ~65 dogs and 15 cats at the SnA shelter. While the number of animals is far fewer than the number that the USPCA’s shelters hold, prices in Bukavu in eastern Congo, are extraordinarily high and the annual cost to feed about 1/5 the number of animals that the USPCA feeds is about 1.5 x what it costs the USPCA. Amazing in a part of the Democratic Republic of Congo that is so extraordinarily poor. Yet SnA Director, Paterne, and his staff provide a beautiful sanctuary for these animals-in-need.
While I was in Congo recently, Paterne and I discussed the high costs of cat and dog food, and we are looking into alternatives. We also discussed SnA’s many accomplishments and needs.
Yes, we mentioned a 3rd Pet Food Fund. The AKI Board held their end-of-year meeting during which we discuss dropping and adding Partner Organizations in the upcoming year. For a peak into one of our decisions for 2024 (we’ll tell you more in the January 2024 newsletter), we’ll be creating a Pet Food Fund for Twala Trust’s very popular Doggy Tuesday, which every week provides food for ~600 dogs from the surrounding community of Goromonzi, Zimbabwe.
AKI Partner Organization Liberia Animal Welfare & Conservation Society runs a Humane Education Program in Zorzor District, holds animal health care clinics in remote parts of Lofa County, and shows us the positive results of both programs:
Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program recipient SPCA Grahamstown (South Africa) has completed their grant project. They spayed/neutered 70 animals, provided vet care, as needed, and held household-level pet education.
With AKI grant funding, SPCA Grahamstown conducted household pet education and provided vet care with such kindness, compassion, and understanding for their cat and dog clientele as well as for their human customers. Some of their stories (like Biscuit’s) are here:
In our November newsletter, we told you that in December, we’d have information about a new way to support Animal-Kind International:Â
Our new store on Fine Art America has customizable greeting cards as well as many other possibilities! Our AKI volunteer can make custom pictures for any products available at the store. Our purchasing donors will receive their own one of a kind, never repeated design on any product of their choosing:
We hope over the past year (and for many previous years), we’ve shown how important your donations are to us. And we so hope that you will support us with an end of the year donation and show our supported organizations how much you care….because they just can’t do this without you!
We wish you kindness always, and a 2024 of health, happiness, and good things.
With gratitude for your kindness and your much-needed and appreciated support,
Karen Menczer, Founder/Director
& the Animal-Kind International Board
AKI has Partner Organizations in Uganda, Namibia, DR Congo, Ghana, South Sudan, Liberia, Honduras, Jamaica, and Armenia. You can donate to AKI’s general fund or designate your donation to one or more of our Partner Organizations.
Our 2023 (6th annual) Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program grantees work in: Zimbabwe (2 grantees), Tanzania (2 grantees), South Africa (2 grantees), Morocco, and Namibia.
AKI: Since 2007, helping animals and the people who care for them in some of the poorest countries.
We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization; donations to A-KI are tax deductible in the US to the extent the law allows. 100% of your donations are used to support our Partner Organizations & our Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program.