Partnerships that create change
Animal Aid Abroad partners with local animal welfare groups in many developing countries to provide free veterinary care to sick and injured working animals, as well as working with communities to improve animal welfare through education and training.
Our current partners
Afghanistan
Nowzad Donkey Sanctuary
On the city outskirts of Kabul lies the Nowzad Donkey Sanctuary, the first of its kind in Afghanistan. It was set up in 2017 to provide facilities for sick animals in need, primarily donkeys, mules and horses. Many are brought in to the sanctuary injured, underweight, severely ill from diseases such as glanders, or at the point of exhaustion from their work carrying heavy loads across the city. Their team provides treatment and hospitalization for these animals, even offering long-term sanctuary to those animals too sick to work again. Animal Aid Abroad supports Nowzad's Equine Sanctuary to look after and care for hospitalised and permanently rescued donkeys and horses.
In 2024, Animal Aid Abroad will be starting a new program with Nowzad, by supporting a fully equipped mobile veterinary clinic to treat working animals, and further expand Nowzad’s reach to Kabul’s outlying districts. They hope the mobile unit will carry vaccines, portable stabling and shelters, water troughs, first aid kits, and farrier equipment to help prevent so many of these pressing issues and improve equine welfare in Afghanistan.
Botswana
Okavango Animal Welfare Trust
https://www.facebook.com/p/Okavango-animal-welfare-trust-100081846036614/
Okavango Animal Welfare Trust (OAWT) are leading the way for animal welfare in Botswana, especially working horses and donkeys. Few vets service these areas, leaving animals with untreated wounds, malnutrition and unsuitable equipment.
The founder and chair of trustees of OAWT, Kenny Keneilwe Disho, grew up in Shakawe and understands the challenges faced by both animals and the community. Driven by a deep love for animals, Kenny, along with other local trustees, established the OAWT to make a real difference.
Dr. Neil Brimson, a trained UK equine vet and an OWAT Board member, reported that the clinics held in Shakawe villages were a huge success. These clinics provided a glimpse into the critical need for animal healthcare, highlighting the prevalence of untreated wounds, overgrown hooves, and the use of ill-fitting harnesses causing discomfort to the animals.
Working with OAWT, we aim to:
Fund six outreach clinics where they will provide basic veterinary care to working horses and donkeys in villages around Shakawe.
Improve animal welfare by addressing health issues and promoting proper animal care, to better the lives of the hardworking animals.
Educate owners and the community about caring for animals
The success of these initial clinics will help us secure further funding for ongoing animal welfare initiatives in the region.
India
Animal Aid Unlimited
http://www.animalaidunlimited.org/
Animal Aid Unlimited is located in Udaipur, India, and rescues and treats unowned street animals in Udaipur that have become ill or injured. Through their rescue efforts, they inspire the community to protect and defend the lives of all animals. They operate a sanctuary that provides a loving forever home for dogs, cats, as well as farm and working animals.
Animal Aid Abroad will be assisting Animal Aid Unlimited by sponsoring a number of handicapped donkeys or donkeys rescued from abuse at their sanctuary in Udaipur. We have committed to supporting these animals by providing funds for their care and rehabilitation.
APOWA (Action for Protection of Wild Animals)
APOWA is a registered not for profit organization founded in the year 1999 with a mission of building a community of people to support the welfare of animals and the environment to improve the relationships between man, animal and environment in the state of Odisha, India.
Led by Bijaya Kumar Kabi, Director of APOWA, Animal Aid Abroad will be supporting a program that will improve the health condition and living status of neglected working animals through veterinary care, promoting owner education and changing attitudes and behaviour. The project will help to ensure that these hardworking animals have access to proper food, good shelter, adequate rest periods, well fitting harnesses, clean drinking water, health management and the avoidance of cruelty. Our mission is to reach, treat, and vaccinate through mobile clinics to around 1000 working animals - mainly bullocks and horses - each year.
HIS-INDIA
Help in Suffering is a large animal welfare group in Jaipur that assists many animals including a camel hospital, mobile clinic and rescue. They have a Camel Rescue Centre, 35 staff, three ambulances, and two mobile vet clinics. AAA supports HIS's camel clinics and rescue.
FRENDICOES SECA
Tripling in size since 1979, Frendicoes uses their Mobile Equine Ambulance to treat equines in and around Delhi. The Equine Team have over 2,500 working equines in their care. AAA supports Friendicoes mobile equine clinic, para-vet equine program and sanctuary where many rescued equines live.
VISAKHA SOCIETY FOR PROTECTION AND CARE OF ANIMALS [VSPCA]
VSPCA has achieved a significant track record in the rescue, protection, rehabilitation, and care of animals who have served humans from ancient times. These are the community’s (sadly) “farmed” animals such as horses and bulls/oxen/male calves vital for rural and urban-based agriculture, religious, and transportation industries, cows for their reproduction of male calves and eons-old service in dairy industries, parrots who tragically serve astrologer livelihoods, rhesus macaques/monkeys who still heart-breakingly serve wayfarers in making a living in street entertainment, roosters and rams harmed through the local fighting rings, even sea animals such as sharks, shrimp, fishes and lobsters in the seafood and aquarium industries, and many such animals transported in an out of farms (agriculture and aqua-industries included) and cities in the service of humans.
In 2024 AAA will be assisting VSPCA to provide working animal protection & rehabilitation by:
Provide protection, rehabilitation and care to 4 male buffalos, 4 female buffalos and 1 horse at Shelter 1 in Visakhatnam
Provide protection, rehabilitation & care to 24 buffalos and 3 horses at Kindness Farm in Visakhatnam (Total of 36 animals sponsored)
Provide protection, rehabilitation and care to all 28 animals including:
Providing food
Health upkeep
Water
Shelter
Medical treatment
Indonesia
Gili Island Working Ponies
The Gili Islands and Lombok Island are home to over 300 working horses. Local laws forbid the use of motorized vehicles, so ponies are the main mode of transportation for all goods including heavy building materials, machinery for infrastructure, supplies for hotels and restaurants, and transport for tourists. They are also used to collect up to 20 tonnes of rubbish per day.
While we cannot change the local laws, we can help to make these ponies lives a little easier. Animal Aid Abroad have been helping Stud Horse Riding and Rescue and the Gili Eco Trust for many years by providing bi-annual clinics for the working ponies. For several years, Animal Aid Abroad has been funding the pellet feed for the hard working rubbish collection ponies. Throughout covid Animal Aid Abroad provided pellet feed to Stud Rescue, who distributed it to many working ponies on the island who’s owners were struggling to keep condition on their ponies.
More recently, Animal Aid Abroad has been working together with Stud Rescue and the Gili Eco Trust to improve the working lives of these ponies by focusing on the education of local farriers on the island, as well as sourcing better quality horse shoes for the local ponies.
Nepal
ANIMAL NEPAL
Based in Lalitpur District, Kathmandu Valley, Animal Nepal is run by volunteers who work tirelessly to assist street dogs, working equines, and working elephants. They manage three rehabilitation centers, have an equine outreach program, we well as a donkey sanctuary. AAA supports a number of donkeys and mules at Animal Nepal's sanctuary through our sponsorship program.
South Africa
BLIND LOVE
Blind Love provides a safe, loving forever home to horses in need, as well as improving the lives of horses ( and all animals) in surrounding disadvantaged communities through education and access to essential services.
Blind Love took in their first rescue almost 20 years ago in 2005 when founder Philippa du Toit rescued an abandoned thoroughbred, Victoria. Word spread quickly and the number of rescued horses grew!
In 2011 disaster struck when one of the rescues was diagnosed with ERU (Equine Recurrent Uveitis), a horrible disease that’s the leading cause of blindness in horses. Philippa was determined for this beautiful horse to lead a happy, healthy life and also to raise awareness of the plight of blind horses in South Africa. This was the founding inspiration for establishing and registering a formal non-profit horse welfare organisation in 2013.
Blind Love expanded over the years and in 2013 started working with the cart horse community of Thaba’Nchu in the Free state Province. Before long they had over 80 horse owners on their database each owning between 6-20 horses!
Outreach clinics were held every fortnight with horses being vet checked, minor injuries treated, horses treated for internal & external parasites, minor harness adjustments made and a subsidised feed program was established. Previously these horses' owners had access to almost nothing.
Blind Love's work in the area has grown to include more than 75 horse riders living in the Trust Villages. These horses do not pull carts, although here and there a cart horse will retire to become a riding horse! Blind Love is continuously looking at innovative ways to provide support, education and access to basic supplies/vet care/tack/feed for these owners and their horses. The area is vast and owners have access to very little.
Blind Love is also looking at establishing a much needed outreach program with the donkey owning community in nearby Grahmstown, Eastern Cape province.
Tanzania
Lake Zone Animal Welfare Organization
www.facebook.com/Lazawomwanza/
Helping Working Donkeys in six Gold Mines in Geita Region
There are over 2,800 working donkeys located in the Geita Gold Mines, which are located three hours west of Mwanza. These donkeys are owned mainly by small artisanal miners and artisanal mining co-ops. These donkeys work 6-7 days a week under very harsh conditions. They are often not given routine food or water, are severely beaten to keep them working, and are over-loaded with heavy bags of dirt, waste rock, and tailings. Open wounds, infected hooves, and malnourishment are seen in the majority of these working animals.
Animal Aid Abroad (AAA) will be funding veterinary care, de-worming, vaccination and education to owners on the proper care of these hardworking animals. The result of untreated wounds, overloading, poor harnessing, and unrecognized disease often leads to intense suffering of the donkeys.
Six (6) mines in the Geita District will be covered by a full-time para-vet funded by AAA to visit donkeys and provide ongoing medical care and training to donkey owners and mining co-ops 6-days/week. These weekly visits at the mines would ensure regular follow-up care for donkeys with medical needs, as well as increase the likelihood that suggested changes for loading, harnessing, and treatment of donkeys is being followed. Additionally, the para-vet and government para-vet will hold once monthly clinics with a LAZAWO veterinarian - rotating monthly between the 6 mines (each mine will be visited twice annually for a large clinic).
Because the mines are spread out in the rural areas outside the town of Geita where regular public transportation is unavailable, AAA will be funding the purchase of a motorbike and monthly fuel/maintenance costs. The Geita para-vet will also be responsible for reporting any donkey skin trade occurrences (or selling of donkeys for suspicious reasons - which often indicate skin trade) to authorities - as Tanzania has recently outlawed the buying/selling of donkey skins.
LAZAWO is a local Tanzanian NGO founded in 2019 by veterinarian Dr. Zacharia Elias and expat volunteer Hilkka Abicht. They focus on neglected and mistreated animals, particularly dogs, cats and donkeys, in the Mwanza Region.
Musoma Project
Why Mwanza's Donkeys Need Us
In Musoma, a rural district north of Mwanza, 3,000 donkeys tirelessly haul water, crops and firewood. Sadly, lack of vet care, overwork, and poor harnesses leave them suffering. This burden falls on families too, as a lost donkey means extra work, sometimes forcing children to leave school.
LAZAWO’s Plan to Help
LAZAWO will hold mobile veterinary clinics in four Musoma towns. These 2-day clinics, held three times a year in each town, will provide:
Education to donkey owners and local veterinary assistants on proper care
Medical treatment and medication for the donkeys
LAZAWO will also hire a vet-assistant in Musoma to provide ongoing medical care and training to donkey owners.
Zambia
ZAMBEZI WORKING DONKEY PROJECT
http://www.zambeziworkingdonkeyproject.org
The Zambezi Working Donkey Project is a not-for-profit organisation in Zambia which undertook its first outreach clinic in May 2019 once the rains allowed travel. Since then the group has conducted many outreaches with mobile clinics out in the villages and worked one on one with owners at their farm base in town. Many dokeys in need of urgent care have also been rescued.
With Animal Aid Abroad funding and support, the Zambezi Working Donkey Project aims to improve the lives of working donkeys and support their owners by educating, enabling and empowering owners to properly train and care for their donkeys; provide community-based education and training to use appropriate harnesses and carts; and rescue and rehabilitate donkeys in need of short or long-term care.
Previous partners & ProjectS - OUR impact since 2007
Animal Aid Abroad has assisted many groups and animals since it began in August 2007. Below is a list of groups AAA has partnered with or donated to over the years to improve the welfare and treatment of working animals including other animals affected by natural disasters in Australia and overseas.
AAE, Egypt
AFJ, Indonesia
Alexandria Zoo, Egypt
Animal Rahat, India
ARK, Japan
AWPO, Uganda
Bridging Lanka, Sri Lanka
CPWO, Cambodia
ESAF, Egypt
Fundacion Rescate Para Animales Desamparados [FRAD], Colombia
Forgotten Paws, Serbia
Gili Eco-Trust, Indonesia
Gili Island Vet Clinic, Indonesia
Happy Children's Orphanage- Animal Shelter, Nepal
Hope and Animal, India
Kankan Animal Protection and Welfare Association, Guinea
Kurdistan Organisation of Animal Rights Protection (KOARP), Kurdistan
Lake Zone Animal Welfare group, Tanzania
Liberia Animal Welfare and Conservation Society (LAWCS), Liberia
Matabeland Animal Rescue and Equine Sanctuary (MARES), Zimbabwe
MAWO, Tanzania
Meru Animal Welfare Organisation, Tanzania
Mwamfumba, Zambia
Noah's Ark Natural Animal Shelter, Malaysia
Orprovet, Nicaragua
PEGASUS Society for Protection of Horses and Donkeys, Israel
PETA, Asia
PFA, India
RSPCA, Qld, Australia
RSPCA, Victoria, Australia
Save the Dogs & Other Animals, Romania
SAYVET, Pakistan
SAWS, Somaliland
Sinbanye Trust, Zimbabwe
SPARE, Egypt
SPCA, Malawi
TAPO, Tanzania
TAHUCHA, Tanzania
TAWESO, Tanzania
Tikobane Trust, Zimbabwe
WFFT, Thailand
WIRES, Australia