September 2021: Kindness to animals has no boundaries
We’re now helping 23 animal welfare organizations (20 of them in Africa) in 16 countries to rescue and care for animals. The 23 include 11 AKI Partners, 9 Grantees, and Friendly Audits for the remaining. While I’m thrilled that we’ve come this far in a short time (just 4 years ago, we were helping 11 organizations), our support is always so precarious and more so in this uncertain time of covid and economic and political upheavals. Yet of course, animal welfare organizations in these poor countries are relying on us more than ever.
When you donate to Animal-Kind International, you can designate your donation to a specific Partner Organization(s) or let us decide where it’s needed most. Whichever you choose, we always send 100% of donations to our supported animal welfare organizations and we do the due diligence to ensure your donations are spent as wisely as possible to help as many organizations and animals as possible. We’re building stronger advocates for animals all over Africa (and beyond).
In Armenia, we’re helping our Partner, Save Animals-Armenia,to purchase food for the Save Animals-Armenia shelter and street animals and for transport costs to take animals to the vet. The SA shelter has only about 35 dogs now, from a high of 220, but they are all old, a bit feeble, and many are ill. The dog pictured above is blind. Now that so many of the dogs at the shelter have died of old age, we continue to help Nune as she focuses beyond the shelter, helping the street cats and dogs survive the harsh conditions in Yerevan.
In Honduras, we’re helping Helping Hands for Hounds of Honduras care for the older, sick, and/or disabled dogs and cats at the Nereida Montes de Oca Sanctuary. HHHH rescues the unwanted, abandoned, “throwaway” cats and dogs, like Pixie (above). Pixie’s family brought her to the vet to be euthanized-she has a deformed front leg -as you can see in the picture, and she was a sick little doggie. The vet got permission from the owners to give Pixie to Pilar at HHHH instead of euthanizing her. She’s perfectly healthy now, and actually she’s a very happy, very active little girl -so much different from that day she was brought to the vet to be put down- who is loving her pampered life at the Sanctuary.
In Jamaica, we help Kingston Community Animal Welfare provide food and vet care, including spay/neuter, for 1000s of street animals and pets belonging to poor families. Like the one above for KCAW, our pie charts, available on each Partner Organization page on our website (the most recent ones show January through June 2021), are a snapshot of how your donations are used. Because of our close relationships with our Partners, they can use AKI funds for their priorities-not out priorities!-we don’t dictate; our Partners know their needs best, and they are thoroughly accountable to and transparent with us.
In Liberia, our support helps Liberia Animal Welfare & Conservation Society hold free basic animal care clinics (above) throughout Lofa County, where vet care is inaccessible - the nearest vet is about a 9 hour drive. Using these clinics as an entry point, LAWCS teaches people how to provide improved care for their pets and through their in-school Humane Ed Program, LAWCS reaches the youngest children to turn Liberia’s upcoming generation into adults who are kind to animals.
In September, we published 2 articles under the AKI Blog, one about our Partner Organization, Uganda SPCA and one about our 2021 Grantee, Nairobi Feline Sanctuary. NFS is 1 of our 9 grantees this year. All grant projects have now begun and we’ll be reporting on them in future newsletters and on our website, here.
Uganda SPCA-Picking up where we left off: This article is a brief summary of just a few of the many rescues and adoptions at the Uganda SPCA shelter, The Haven, over the last few months. AKI support to the USPCA is used for shelter operating costs. Because donations to the USPCA have fallen precipitously during covid, the USPCA is using AKI funds for the basic necessities of running the shelter-Haven rent, staff salaries, and cat and dog food. But that means there’s little left for anything else (electricity, water, cooking fuel, transport, and on and on—all the costs of running a shelter). The USPCA’s finances are in sorry shape right now, and we’re trying to help raise money to keep the shelter operating at full capacity because Uganda’s animals desperately need The Haven. Even with the budget constraints, we’re grateful that the new Haven vet, Dr. Dickson, is keeping the cats and dogs at the shelter spayed and neutered (below)!
Also, we hope soon to be reporting on the USPCA’s move to their new 2.08 acre property, now officially USPCA-owned-but still USPCA owes several 1000s of US$ to individual lenders. And still, the plot needs a perimeter fence, reception with facilities, and the USPCA needs funds for moving costs for the existing pens and other transportable items).
Nairobi Feline Sanctuary-making improvements with an AKI grant: For the 2nd year in a row, NFS received an AKI Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant. This year, NFS is building 40 self-contained kitty condos, 3 story units with a sleeping area, a living area, and a litter box area. NFS is also building a small quarantine area to keep incoming cats before they’re released to the general kitty population. These additional facilities, plus the s/n clinic and play area that NFS built with the AKI grant from 2020, allows NFS to help so many more of Nairobi’s kitties. Just during August, NFS spayed 20 cats, neutered 30, and rescued 35 cats - 26 orphaned/abandoned kittens, two pregnant mothers, two nursing mothers, and the rest older cats. This AKI Blog post is all about NFS’s amazing work, as the only organization specifically dedicated to helping Kenya’s domestic cats.
We’re so grateful……
We’re grateful to those of you who wrote glowing 5-star reviews of Animal-Kind International on the Great Non-Profits website. We’re officially a Great Non-Profit of 2021! The more 5-star reviews we get, the better, so please keep writing those reviews. We’re so grateful to the Ecospirituality Foundation for publishing the article, Animal-Kind International: Working for the growth of animal welfare in Africa. The article is about the start of AKI up to today.
There’s still time before the holidays to get your Pet Portrait. For only a $12 donation to Animal-Kind International, Joan will send you a downloadable Pet Portrait with your favorite 4-legged family members. We’re grateful to those of you who have requested and are already enjoying your Pet Portraits.
We’re grateful to those of you who designate Animal-Kind International for your AmazonSmile purchases. Those disbursements from Amazon really help us—and the animals—-out.
We are so grateful to you