At Animal Aid Abroad (AAA), one of the primary reasons our members and donors choose to support us is our commitment to maximising donations for the direct benefit of animals in need.

As required by the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission (ACNC) guidelines, all charities must publish their Annual Reports, which include financial records that are publicly accessible. Our reports, like those of other charities, reflect that administrative costs are an unavoidable part of any nonprofit organization. However, I’m proud to say that AAA has one of the lowest administrative costs of all charities in Australia. 

Our administrative expenses primarily consist of necessary compliance and registration fees, as well as technology needed to run our operations. We communicate with our community via email, our website, and social media, which helps us avoid the costs associated with printed media and postage. Additionally, we do not incur office or staff expenses thanks to our dedicated group of volunteers who generously offer their time, skills, and equipment from their own homes. While we do pay small honorariums to some key administrative volunteers and occasionally hire consultants when necessary, we do this sparingly.

When you contribute your hard-earned money to our organisation, you can be assured that your donation goes directly toward reducing the suffering of animals in need.

We understand that a lot of animal charities allow for the nomination of an animal to sponsor.  We used to do this ourselves, however, we chose some years ago to reconsider this program.  There are many reasons for this decision:  Some animals were more popular than others, putting the less popular animals at risk of being unsupported; given the nature of the work that we support, it is inevitable that from time to time there are deaths of animals, causing distress to our sponsors; some of our most badly abused animals are too graphic to show publicly and they would never get exposure to sponsorship; and then there are the practical issues of the increased administrative workload that had to be considered when we are a small charity with only volunteers to keep it running. 

We now fund the upkeep of these animals across ALL of the animals through the generosity of our monthly donors.  All of our regular monthly donors are supporting each of our very worthy animals equally.

At AAA, we are dedicated to improving the lives of working horses, donkeys, mules, bullocks, buffaloes, camels, and other working animals. Our core mission is to relieve their suffering, abuse, and pain.

Your support will be directly used in our four main areas of operation: Rescue, Medical Treatment, Equipment, and Education. Your donations may provide much-needed feed, cover medical treatment for an injured horse, allow us to rescue an abandoned donkey, or help install water troughs. They may also provide blankets for equines during the cold winters in the subcontinent or purchase materials for humane harnesses that many of our working animals depend on every day. The needs of these working animals are vast, and every donation—big or small—is maximised to benefit them.

Yes!  We choose to have the financial reports audited for complete transparency to our donors and members.  As a small charity we are not required to do this, but we believe it is important that the financial results are independently reviewed to provide a high level of confidence to our valuable supporters.

Prior to agreeing to financially support any organisation, vet clinic or rescue group overseas, we thoroughly scrutinise their resources, existing funding (if any), what animals they are aiming to assist, their staff (their expertise and knowledge), their goals and how they propose to achieve those plans ie they must submit a formal proposal / grant application to AAA that clearly outlines what they propose to do with any funding we might provide. 

There are many, many small (and larger) groups in the world all vying for financial support from the ‘wealthy West’. All applications are thoroughly scrutinised by AAA’s founder, Janet Thomas, who cross checks references, asks trusted local organisations to also investigate and in many cases visits the organisations herself. Proposals are then put to the AAA  Committee who further scrutinise the details and further questions are posed to the organisation. Only once the entire committee is in agreeance are the next steps undertaken. 

Before any monies are sent from AAA, all overseas groups/sanctuaries that we agree to assist must sign an MOU with AAA indicating clearly their obligation to provide monthly reports, receipts of items bought with AAA money, photographs (when requested) of infrastructure built with AAA money and any other documentation requested by AAA.  

This is non-negotiable: those doing the hard yards to help working animals at ground level are compelled to disclose all information that we ask for, and our transactions with them must be 100% transparent. 

Please note, as an Australian charity, AAA itself gets audited every year by the ACNC and all our Annual Reports are available on our website at: https://www.animalaidabroad.org/financial-reports

In the spirit of effective assistance to any working animal, AAA would suggest that if you see animals being used as beasts of burden, loaded up, transporting goods or people, or even for tourism, you could take a minute to find (a) if there is a local animal rescue / welfare group or government agency in that area/country and (b) contact them to simply enquire about the welfare and treatment of those animals. Please, always, when enquiring, be courteous, open-minded, aware of cultural differences and be non-confrontational with the locals. 

If you have no success in identifying anyone enforcing welfare guidelines, then you could investigate further when you are home by looking into the various animal welfare/rescue groups that exist in that country/region and reach out to them with a general query about the working animals in question. Photos can help if you are comfortable taking them and this does not cause friction with the locals on site. 

Again, being aware that we are guests in another country and respectful of their practices and methods of communication is the best way to begin protecting animals, rather than a highly emotional confrontation - even when the situation is very distressing and poor treatment of animals is present. 

For lasting change and improvement, we must work together with the animal owners, local governments and, sometimes, religious leaders.

AAA are very pleased to be able to welcome anyone with passion, ideas and the drive to want to help improve the lives of working animals by having access to medical care and preventative medicine, by educating owners about appropriate feeding, management and care and by providing appropriate equipment to reduce and prevent many of the injuries that are caused by inappropriate equipment. 

We can use volunteers with a whole scope of skills from fund raising ideas, webpage suggestions and IT knowledge to writing skills and public speaking or retail skills when running our stalls. We also welcome event co-ordinating minded people for our fundraising events that generate a considerable amount of our income. And, of course, these days most of this can be done remotely so interested parties interstate…please get in touch with us!

Our core mission is to assist working animals, and to do this we must spread the word about these often-forgotten animals. They do not receive the same attention and spotlight as some of the other animals that are in need of help, but their suffering and maltreatment is equal to, or in many cases worse than those more ‘glamourous’ animal campaigns. 

Once you have looked into the soulful eyes of the equines, camelids and livestock that we help…you will know in your heart that your time, energy and skills are meant to be here. 

At AAA we are always happy to talk more on what we do, and how you can join us in our mission to relieve harsh conditions and suffering of working animals around the world. So, please, do get in touch and find out how you can join us on this journey.

It can be very hard to observe animals being used under harsh and inappropriate conditions while you are enjoying other cultures abroad and wish to have a true experience of what there is on offer for tourists.

If you come across a situation that makes you question the treatment of animals, it is a very personal decision as the whether you choose to take part in that activity / buy that product. 

From an animal welfare perspective, we would advise to decline the activity (or not purchase the product) and politely discuss the notion of using animals for this purpose with the owner/ person in charge, asking if (a) it is necessary and (b) if they are well cared for. Even if you receive dubious responses (or no response at all) you will have brought the matter to their attention and may prompt them to realise that tourists, increasingly, are discouraged by animal use for entertainment, making products, or transportation.

You may not wish to initiate the conversation, so simply move on. 

If you are travelling in a group, at a hostel or use online chat groups, you may wish to advise other tourists of active animal use and politely explain that by discouraging these practices, you might be making a difference as to whether or not animals continue to be used in that situation.

Each and every charity group (animal or human or environmental) has to start with a goal and a mission in order to formulate (and hopefully fulfil) what they are motivated towards, and working so hard, to achieve. 

Helping one group (eg: working animals) by no means lessens the need for helping other animals, however, the mission of AAA is to relieve suffering and improve the welfare of working animals around the world as we feel these are the animals that are so often forgotten and so sorely suffering. 

As it happens, when we provide assistance to one of our overseas Partner Groups who are rescuing working animals, we often end up helping cats and dogs as well due to the infrastructure and strategic planning of the Partner Group who often works for all animals in their respective geographical area.

AAA, and many other groups helping animals across the world would love for these animals to be replaced by trucks and other vehicles, however it must be remembered that usually the people who use animals for loading and transport etc have extremely low socio-economic conditions and barely have enough finance for their own welfare. Owning an animal (and using it to full and above capacity) is far more in reach for these communities than purchasing vehicles. And, again, it is sometimes a case of history and culture and simply following what generations before have done. 

In some situations, particular in agricultural areas of animal use, the terrain is just too difficult for vehicles and therefore, unfortunately, load-bearing animals are considered the best method for this work to be carried out. Where it is possible and feasible we do advocate for replacement with vehicles but this is often difficult, very expensive and the vehicles also breakdown or can also be sold and the owners go back and get another animal so it is rarely a realistic solution.

This would seem, at first glance, the easiest thing to do and the best for the animals involved, however, by taking working animals from those who use them as a means of income, the owner will only get another to replace the animal we rescue. The owner will also likely be very reluctant to seek medical help for their animal in the future if they are concerned that the animal may be taken away from them. The long term solution, although harder to accept when seeing suffering animals, is to assist, educate, provide medical care and appropriate equipment and support the owner to treat their animal/s better, understand why that is necessary and beneficial for everyone and, hopefully they will pass this philosophy onto the next generation.

Of course, overt and high degree cruelty can, and should, be reported (see previous question on what to do if witnessing animal mistreatment) so that there will be at least an attempt to take that animal from its owner for immediate medical care and consequences for those perpetrating deliberate cruelty. Most partner groups work closely with law enforcement so these severe cases can be addressed.

It can be very distressing observing some ‘traditional’ animal use practices in other countries, however, the best assistance for animal protection is to use calm, effective and rationale methods. Remember, we are usually dealing with countries that have embedded attitudes towards animals that are very different to most of us in the ‘West’. We are striving for social change in the long term, and that rarely occurs rapidly.

The harsh treatment of animals in developing countries is, for the most part, due to lack of education. Sometimes it is also from cultural practices. These countries have long histories of attitudes to animals that are challenging for us to watch; we are negotiating with animal owners that do what they do simply because that’s how their forefathers, for many generations, did it. There is no awareness (in some places) that animals are sentient just as we are, and able to experience pain and suffering. And sometimes it is a lack of money that stops owners providing appropriate feed, shelter and medical care to their stock.

By speaking to locals and the leaders of their community, as well as providing animal welfare awareness classes in schools, we strive to change attitudes to animals through education, awareness and having animal owners work together with vets and para-vets in the area. This is why our support of local vets and rescue groups is so crucial: it is enabling them to filter into more and more communities to spread the knowledge of better techniques in animal handling/diet/wound care and this will result in better treatment of those animals in a long-term and effective way.