June 2026: Animal Welfare Grant Update & news from Uganda to Haiti & beyond

Kindness to Animals Has No Boundaries

AKI News: June 2026

Update on our 9th annual 2026 Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program for Africa

and Latin America/Caribbean

We’ve received all external reviews from the 12 members on our Africa proposal committee and 9 on our LAC committee and we’re just over 2 weeks away from announcing our 2026 grantees.

We started with 123 proposals and we’re down to 41 finalists. As I’m sure you can imagine, these decisions are very difficult with so many organizations doing so much good work with very little support. We are awed by the impact that each and every grant project will have.  

Of the 41 finalists, the AKI Board will select 12-15 grant projects to support this year. Our grant program is 100% donor funded. The more donations we receive for the grant program, the more grant projects we can fund.

If you’re interested in donating for all or part of a grant, please get in touch and we’d be happy to discuss the possibilities.

We are one of the few dedicated funders of local, community-based animal welfare organizations in Africa and Latin America/Caribbean!

I'd like to donate to AKI's grant program!

We’ll announce winners of our 2026 Animal Welfare Grants and post summaries of each project on the Grant Program 2026 page by July 15.

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Your donations reach many VERY worthwhile organizations in Africa & Latin America/Caribbean, including our 10 Partner Organizations and in 2025-2026, our 13 grant recipients.

For many grantees, our Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program has benefits far beyond the baseline grant. For example, as we announced in the May newsletter, the Good DOG (Dogs of Grahamstown) Fund was replenished for the 3rd time (starting in June). With the Good DOG Fund 1 & 2, our 4-time grantee, SPCA Grahamstown, has able to help hundreds of cats, dogs, a couple of donkeys, and a cow get much-needed vet care, care that the SPCA wouldn’t have been able to provide without our support. Now that the Good DOG Fund 2 has been expended, we’re thrilled to continue our support for SPCA Grahamstown through the Good DOG Fund 3.

Benji’s owners contacted the SPCA as she had given birth to a deceased premature pup. Benji was checked out by the vet, no more pups were present, and she was spayed—>made possible by the Good DOG Fund 2.

Read mores stories from the Good DOG Fund 2

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Your support also ensures that AKI Partner Kingston Community Animal Welfare can feed, provide vet care, and spay/neuter 1000s of cats and dogs living on Kingston’s streets. With the Rescue & Spay/Neuter Mobile, a used, sturdy SUV that we were able to purchase, KCAW can now reach even more locations more frequently.

Deborah, director of Kingston Community Animal Welfare with two rescued dogs; she is the force behind KCAW.

Read about KCAW’s recent rescue work here.

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Another 2025 grantee that has benefited beyond their baseline grant is Fondation Alliance Verte in Haiti. Thanks to generous supporters, we created the FAV Spay/Neuter & Emergency Vet Care Fund.

Since April, 2 dogs and 1 cat have been spayed, and many others have received emergency vet care thanks to the FAV Fund, including Rocco (above) whose tongue was rotten and he needed surgery to remove part of it! Other animals helped to-date include a cat who needed surgery for feline mammary fribroepithelial (mastitis) and Whisky, a rescued dog who resides at the FAV shelter who had severe liver problems.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and ranks among the most impoverished nations globally. Gang violence is widespread. By donating to the FAV S/N & Emergency Fund, you can help Haiti’s suffering dogs and cats through our 2025 grant recipient, Fondation Alliance Verte, who runs the only animal shelter in the country.

Designate my donation for FAV Haiti!

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David, animal caretaker at the USPCA’s new location, models the motorbike and helmet we purchased for the USPCA. The bike will have a rack on the back to transport rescued dogs and cats in crates.

Your donations also reach our Partner Organization Uganda Society for the Protection & Care of Animals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpfKJuubiP4

We co-shared with IFAW this used SUV for SnA. No more hiking 20 km with a dog in arms or cat in a crate; no longer at the mercy of militias and police. SnA staff and their rescued animals will now be safe, secure, and better able to fulfill their mission of rescue and care!

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We also provide technical assistance to our supported organizations.

Liberia Animal Welfare & Conservation Society has been an AKI Partner Organization since 2016, when we started supporting their Humane Ed Program and Animal Care Clinics. Together, LAWCS and AKI decided it was time to dig deeper into the impacts of their Humane Ed Program and see what we could learn after 10 years of experience. We weren’t surprised to find very few examples—searching globally—of a monitoring program for HE, so we paired LAWCS with a virtual volunteer (our Friendly Audit Program), and together, they designed a monitoring, evaluation, and learning plan and are now collecting and analyzing data.

LAWCS staff conducted 70 interviews with teachers, student alumni, and community members who have been involved in the LAWCS HE Program. What we’re finding from these interviews is fascinating and uplifting. For example, there’s this quote from a student who graduated from the LAWCS Humane Ed Program: "It has made me to really have a different, deep, creative love for animals. And it makes me want to advance." We’ll add more monitoring results and lessons learned as the MEL process moves ahead. We’re looking forward to sharing this with other animal welfare organizations around the world.

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Your donations also help us support special projects where our expertise and funding can make a BIG DIFFERENCE!  

In our May newsletter, we wrote about our work with the Animal Welfare Alliance of Uganda, a group of legitimate animal welfare organizations in Uganda, formed to fight the Uganda rescue scam. In the April AKI Blog, we had written this:

We are continuing to help the Mityana cats and dogs and on June 14, when two of the rescued cats weren’t feeling well, we covered Feline Panleukopenia tests, de-worming, and other meds.

We’re supporting the vet care for the 52 dogs and 6 cats rescued from scammers in Uganda. So far, this has included: May 29 blood sampling day and TVT treatment day; by June 2, one castration and three spays and the dog with the tumor on his chest had surgery; on June 10, two dogs castrated and two dogs spayed; on June 18, four dogs spayed, the puppies received their first round of parvo shots, and the rest of the dogs received there cocktail vaccine.

In Traditional Chinese, 4 warning signs of a rescue scam

Be aware of these warning signs!

Also, check out our AKI Blog for translations of two of our articles about the Uganda scam into Traditional Chinese (thank you, Ralph for the translation, helping us reach more people about the scam!)

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Help us reach a larger audience. Please forward our newsletter

to an animal-loving friend.

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THANK YOU!

Thanks to your support, we’re helping effective animal advocates and animal welfare organizations working in conflict areas and impoverished communities. We’ve seen so many examples of people helping animals even when their own lives are so difficult. In countries where we work, it takes just a little to help a lot. Thank you SO much for helping!

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.