Oct 2025: Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica & Updates from Africa
- Animal-Kind International
- 5 hours ago
- 7 min read
Kindness to Animals Has No Boundaries
AKI News: October 2025
Confronted with a few emergencies and several critical needs over the past couple of months, more than ever we are grateful for our monthly supporters. Your recurring donations mean that we can quickly act when animals need us, as you can see from the updates below. But as always, because the needs are so great, we always have to ask for more…..
Hurricane in Jamaica
Of course, right now, with the devastation in Jamaica from Hurricane Melissa, AKI
Partner Kingston Community Animal Welfare will be needing our help—as soon as power is back and funds can be sent. We’ve been there for KCAW before the hurricane (including for a few previous hurricanes) and we’ll be there as soon as they’re able to get back on the street, assess the damage, get animals to a vet for emergency care, and get food and other help to the street animals.
It’s now October 29, the storm has passed through Jamaica, and we haven’t heard from Deborah since Oct 27 (77% of the country is without power and communications). We know she’ll be in touch as soon as she is able, and we’ll be ready to send whatever funds we’ve raised to help her buy food and medical supplies and get vet care for the street animals.
Updates from the AKI Blog
Read AKI Blog posts and go a little deeper into what Animal-Kind International support means to our Partners, Grantees, and the animals:
Uganda SPCA: Animal Shelter Update - This AKI Blog article covers 5 important updates about our Partner Organization, Uganda SPCA. One of them is about the photo above showing 3 kennels of resting dogs at the USPCA shelter. (Hint: This update, update 2, is about the matching donation we were offered to build and repair dog boxes). READ THE 5 UPDATES HERE
SPCA Grahamstown & the Animal-Kind International Good DOG Fund - SPCA Grahamstown's 3rd grant from Animal-Kind International, awarded in 2024, attracted the attention of some of our supporters and with a donation to AKI, we created the Good D.O.G. (Dogs of Grahamstown) Fund so that SPCA-G could continue their spay/neuter and emergency work in under-served communities around Grahamstown/Makhanda in South Africa. And now there’s a Good DOG Fund 2 for SPCA Grahamstown!
Fondation Alliance Verte in Haiti takes care of their shelter dogs with the AKI grant - Our 1st grantee to complete their 2025 grant project, this is an AKI Blog post about their project, Prevention is crucial! Help needed to protect our shelter in Port-au-Prince Haiti. As a side note, Marylin told us that their shelter was spared by Hurricane Melissa, and at least when we spoke a few days ago, no damage had occurred. We’re so grateful for that given how ill-equipped Haiti is to handle a hurricane and the many other challenges that FAV faces when rescuing cats and dogs.
Updates: Helping Animals, Responding to Critical Needs
AKI Partner Have a Heart-Namibia expended all funds in the AKI-HaH Emergency Fund, 2 months earlier than expected. This week, we replenished the Fund. Messages like this one from Giovanni Hunibeb convinced us: “Thank you Have a Heart, Reni, Elvira Veterinary Practice and Animal-Kind International for saving my dog's life, I cried everytime I saw my dog in pain but you gave peace and more then I ever expected and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
When Giovanni got in touch with us at Animal-Kind International, we connected him to AKI Partner Have a Heart-Namibia and his dog Duggie got the help he needed. Duggie had tick bite fever, he had collapsed by the time Giovanni brought him to the clinic, he was severely anemic, and was yellow from jaundice. Buddy (left) was his blood donor. Every day, Giovanni came to visit Duggie at the clinic, and when he heard about Buddy, the dog whose blood had saved Duggie’s life, Giovanni asked to meet him (photo above).
Sauvons nos Animaux - We may have been a little too optimistic when we wrote in last month’s newsletter that slowly life is returning to normal around the shelter in Bukavu, eastern Congo. Paterne explained: “This is the context in which we work today. Every photo, every outing carries a risk. Before taking a picture, we must first assess the location, the people around us, and the safety situation. We live and work in constant fear, but despite everything, we continue to save lives. We have exactly 89 adult dogs, 48 puppies, 16 cats, and 7 kittens, for a total of 160 animals. Financially speaking, the previous AKI funds were used entirely for animal food, staff salaries, and urgent repairs.”
This week, we replenished the Sauvons nos Animaux Pet Food Fund and sent funds for staff salaries. We did this even though it’s 2 months sooner than we had planned to replenish it. With the holidays looming, we can’t forget Sauvons nos Animaux staff, who put their lives on the line every time they travel to the shelter and back home.
As we mentioned in last month’s newsletter, AKI Partner South Sudan SPCA, Kenya SPCA, and a small team of us who have worked in South Sudan, meet weekly to organize the 1st large scale spay/neuter campaign in Juba. This has been a multi-year effort (insecurity, changes in government, changing regulations and requirements have gotten in the way and prolonged the process) and the budget has increased. Because we feel it’s so important for a successful campaign, we—Animal-Kind International—agreed to pay for Kenya SPCA’s participation. KSPCA will send 3 staff members to South Sudan:
James Nyariki Ombati, veterinary surgeon
George Guyo, humane handling expert and campaign organizer/floor manager
Nicholas Mungiria, vet assistant, in charge of anesthesia and pre- and post-op animal care
KSPCA will cover salaries and AKI will pay for flights, visas, accommodation, and meals while the 3 KSPCA staff are in South Sudan for 2 weeks. The 3 KSPCA staff will be involved in the campaign and will train South Sudanese vets, vet assistants, community organizers, humane educators, and other volunteers so that the SSSPCA will be able to run the next spay/neuter campaign without outside technical support.
Twala Trust - Zimbabwe: Did you know that the Waggley Tail Club (the old folks at the Twala sanctuary) has 90 members? The oldest Waggley Tail Club member is 16. That’s remarkable given that 11 years ago (before Doggy Tuesday began providing vet care and food for local dogs) the average lifespan for a rural dog was 2 years!
Sarah from Twala Trust wrote, “We are so grateful to AKI for making it possible to provide the very best care for the elderly dogs of the Waggley Tail Club (photo above). Around a third of the dogs have chronic conditions requiring costly daily medication that would be beyond reach without your support. They are able to live comfortable and peaceful lives after years of hardscrabble existence in rural homesteads….The sanctuary runs more efficiently and helps more animals because of your generous support.”
Looking to the end of the year, Twala Trust will need additional funds from us to buy food for Doggy Tuesday dogs (and cat food too) and provide care for the Waggley Tail Club dogs (and for other critical needs they may have). Our monthly donors relieve so much of our anxiety over whether we’ll be able to meet Twala’s (and other) critical needs. But with the growing challenges around the world—which, as always, are felt most heavily in Africa—sadly we always have to ask for more.
Jonathan and Moses (6 Freedoms volunteer farriers) continue to organize farrier stations for the beach horses at Laboma, like this one-photo above-in October when 15 horses’ hooves were filed and 14 were dewormed (one was pregnant and wasn’t dewormed). The team doesn’t only provide farrier services and deworming though. They make sure that between farrier services, the grooms do their best for the horses under their care. It’s an ongoing effort and one that needs our ongoing support! And the Six Freedoms is the only organization helping the beach horses of Ghana.
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These emergency needs and other critical expenses over the last 2 months have really put a dent in our accounts. We are grateful for your kind support that helps us meet our obligations and respond to the needs of animals in resource-poor parts of the world.