Jan 2026: Annual Report & Way Forward-2026 & Fire in South Africa!
- Animal-Kind International
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Our Annual Report-2025 is now available on our website (or send an email message and I’ll send it to you). The report has all the details about how we helped our Partners in 2025—and their achievements, about our Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program, and so much more. This year the annual report includes a new section, Way Forward. What better time to look ahead than when we’re reflecting on and assessing the previous year? In discussions with the AKI Board, Partners and Grantees, and volunteers, we discovered what they think we did well in 2025 and ideas to improve in 2026 and beyond.
MONTHLY DONORS: I sent all end-of-year emails (with total donated and what your donations helped us accomplish) in mid-December. If you haven’t received yours, please get in touch and I’ll gladly re-send it.
Stacy LeBaron, an expert in the field of community cats and trap, neuter return strategies, in creating humane environments for cats, and host of the Community Cats Podcast, interviewed Animal-Kind International Director Karen for the Community Cats Podcast. They talked about domestic cats in Africa and shared lessons learned. Stacy’s a great interviewer.
Updates from the AKI Blog
We have only one new AKI Blog post to share this month, but it’s a wonderful piece with beautiful photos and worth a read!
It Takes a Pack: What African Wild Dogs Taught Me About Care - Alexandra George, AKI supporter and guest blogger, wrote about her experiences with African wild dogs in the Okavango in Botswana:
A fire at the Blind Love Sanctuary, South Africa
A wildfire swept through South Africa's Blind Love Sanctuary (an AKI 2023, 2024, and 2025 grant recipient) on January 18. Winds were gale force, and the fire quickly spread as it burned through four farms and homes on its path to the sanctuary. All that separated the fire from the sanctuary was a road, which they hoped would act as a fire break. But then the wind picked up, the fire jumped the road and raced across the horse fields. For almost 3 hours Philippa, her husband, staff, and the animals were trapped by the fire on all sides and no help from outside could get in.
Blind Love’s Philippa wrote, “It’s an absolute TOTAL miracle we managed to get all the horses and donkeys to safety into our front and back garden while trying to calm our two blind horses and the older animals, 40 yr old Wollie, Prince, and OuBaas, who are just too vulnerable to have been put in the herd with everyone else.”
Philippa told us that all structures that had previously been funded by the 2023 AKI grant were saved! Right now Blind Love is trying to get the boundary fence up to secure the property and to let the horses and donkeys out of their confined space and into the larger pastures.
We’re still collecting information from Philippa about what she needs: “For the fencing, we’ve started with what we have. But that’s going to be the biggest cost. Absolutely huge. We do have a game farm that’s dismantling fences and sending some of what we need our way.”
The pastures were burned, but Philippa believes she has enough food until the rains come and the grass regenerates.
We’re getting regular updates, and we’re trying to stay on top of it all: what they need most, the next phase, and on and on. It will be a long process before the sanctuary has fully recovered, but we are so grateful that Philippa and team worked so hard, putting their lives at risk, to save their donkeys and horses, who already had dealt with so much trauma. And in the end, no people or animals were harmed (at least not physically).
Donations to AKI that are designated for Blind Love will go towards their most pressing needs, which as of now are fences, stakes, and gates, but it’s an evolving situation and we will try to help where our help is most needed.
Your support helps strengthen our Partner Organizations and Grantees in Africa and Latin America/Caribbean, providing shelter, vet care, spay/neuter, and educating the next generation of animal advocates.
I hope you’ll take some time to read our Annual Report-2025 and Way Forward-2026. The impacts we had, the support we provided, the lives saved, the organizations strengthened, the minds changed, it’s all because of our supporters. No grants, no government support, we do all this with donations from people like you who care.
We are gratefully yours,
Karen Menczer, Founder/Director
& the Animal-Kind International Board
Our Partner Organizations work in Uganda, Namibia, DR Congo, Ghana, South Sudan, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Honduras, and Jamaica. You can donate to AKI’s general fund or designate your donation to one or more of our Partner Organizations.
Our 2025 (8th annual) Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program grantees work in: Kenya, Tanzania (2 grantees), South Africa (2 grantees), Cameroon, Namibia, Israel, Haiti, Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile.
AKI: Since 2007, helping animals and the people who care for them in resource-poor areas.
We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization; donations to AKI are tax deductible in the US to the extent the law allows. 100% of your donations are used to support our Partner Organizations & our Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program.
