MARES Zimbabwe - July update

MARES in Zimbabwe have sent us an update on their activity during July:

On 13 July MARES went to a small village 20kms from Mabale where 2 donkeys had been hit by a vehicle.  One donkey had unfortunately died, however the other donkey was alive but seriously injured.  It took us the entire day to collect, transfer and bring the injured donkey back to MARES.  Sadly, it was confirmed that his back had been broken and we humanely euthanized him.

On Sunday 24 July 2022 we embarked on our July Harness & Education outreach as well as vaccination campaign. 

On Wednesday 27 July we held our outreach in the village of Liseidi.  After our basic training we handed out 20 harnesses and affixed the swingle trees to their carts. We spent the rest of the day deworming and vaccinating 80 more donkeys who have already received their harnesses.

A donkey owner who received harnesses last year had resorted to using 4 donkeys again and severely overloading the cart.  The injury on the one donkey's neck was so severe and all 4 donkeys were overdriven and injured.  He was reported to the police who visited him and told him to rest his donkeys until the wounds have healed.  The next day in the evening we found the donkey owner galloping his donkeys at full speed and whipping them.  He was using the same injured donkeys.  He has now been arrested and his donkeys taken to VAWS for safe keeping. 

On Thursday we were on our way to Mabale when we were told that the police, who have to be in attendance at all our outreaches,  had been taken to Victoria Falls and that we were not allowed to have our campaign at Mabale.  We have rescheduled the harness outreach and vaccinating for 5-7 August.