LAWCS works in some of the more remote parts of Liberia. Their focus is Lofa County (outlined in red below, already fairly remote) and within Lofa, they work in communities that are best reached by motorbike (see the video below).
In these rural areas, many with very few services of any kind, LAWCS is the only provider of animal care services. LAWCS holds community animal clinics, where they provide rabies and parvovirus vaccinations, tick and flea medications, de-worming meds, wound care, mange treatment, and other basic animal care.
When LAWCS travels to remote parts of Lofa County, they expect to-and do-treat at least 200 animals on every trip. Over the last few months, with AKI support, LAWCS provided direct animal care to 1023 dogs and 52 cats in 30 villages in Voinjama and Quardu Gbondi districts.
Below are pictures and results from some of the clinics.....
In March, LAWCS held clinics in Koinyama town, Voinjama District, where 250 dogs and cats were treated (2 pictures below).
The picture below is from another March basic animal care clinic. When the LAWCS team visits a community, they make sure that every dog and cat is brought to the clinic for a check-up, and then they receive the necessary care (tick, flea, and worm prevention, mange treatment, vaccinations). The LAWCS team also provides animal welfare education to the community (picture below). During their community clinics over the past few months, LAWCS educated more than 1200 animal owners about good pet care.
The picture below is from another community clinic. In these communities, LAWCS is the only provider of animal care services and their clinics are always in great demand.
This dog, with a very bad flea infestation, was seen at a LAWCS clinic at the end of March. Imagine how much suffering is prevented thanks to LAWCS:
AKI also supports LAWCS in-school Humane Education Program. Over the last few months, LAWCS reached 3917 children in 11 schools in Kolahun District, Lofa County and printed humane education material for the students. Their HE Program teaches kindness, love, and compassion for animals and people.
LAWCS continually discovers stories that illustrate the successes of their HE Program. These are some examples....
Kpehe thought that animals feel no pain (a common belief) because it was normal to see the adults around him abuse animals. And Kpehe of course concluded that it was okay to abuse animals. But once Kpehe began participating in the LAWCS HE Program two years ago, he discovered a different way to treat animals. Since then, Kpehe has become a true animal lover and advocate for animals. He adopted this puppy from his uncle and named him Survivor (below).
This is Veronica and her dog Courage (below). Veronica didn't like animals and she wasn't particularly nice to them. But that changed when she enrolled in the LAWCS HE Program at her school. Now she regrets her past actions and in her daily life, Veronica takes steps to advocate for animals and teach others that it's better to be kind to animals, as she learned from LAWCS.
Ma Finda and her dog Peace are constant companions (below). But not everyone in Ma Finda's community felt about animals as she did. According to Ma Finda, with their animal care clinics and humane education, LAWCS has transformed her community into an animal loving community.
From May 3 to 9, LAWCS celebrated Be Kind to Animals week. During that week, students in the LAWCS HE Program were tasked with organizing activities that would show the community what kindness to animals means and that would inspire others to do the same. Over 200 children participated in Be Kind to Animals week, holding activities such as dog washing days (below), dog and cat feedings, and education events.
In addition to supporting the above work, donations to AKI paid LAWCS office rent for 6 months, from January through June 2021; provided monthly compensation for 3 LAWCS staff for 5 months, from January through May, 2021; and provided daily food for 2 rescue animals, a cat and a dog, temporarily living at the LAWCS office.
We think this is a GREAT and HIGHLY IMPACTFUL use of AKI donor funds! Thank you.