Animal-Kind International
Nov 6, 2020
On June 9, we received a proposal from Animal Protection Foundation-Egypt to our Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program. We announced the grant winners during the 1st week of August and APF was one of the nine winners. By the time APF's grant was completed, 3 months later, they had moved almost 2000 dogs from their old location to their new shelter, built kennels at the new location, and built the AKI grant-supported isolation building.
As the covid-19 pandemic wore on and the economic situation worsened, dog owners in Cairo began abandoning their pets. Suddenly APF was admitting 10 to 15 previously owned dogs every day. Because of the global travel ban, APF could no longer send dogs to North America and Europe, where they have a much better chance of being adopted. Due to the dramatic increase in the number of dogs at the APF shelter, it became clear that APF needed a larger space (picture below, the crowded conditions at the old APF shelter).
Although APF tries hard to find good homes for their dogs in Egypt, it's not easy. From March 2020 to June 2020, they placed 21 dogs locally. However, finding these good homes required APF to review 350 adoption applications, interview 150 applicants, and perform 30 homes visits, of which only 21 where approved. A lot of work went into placing those 21 dogs at good homes in Egypt! APF has found that dogs who have homes often suffer more abuse than dogs living on the streets, so they are very careful who they adopt dogs to.
In September, APF began the move to their new site. The video below shows the new location and the condition of the building that, with the grant from AKI, they were going to turn into their isolation center (you can also see Hanan, founder & director of APF). Rather than build from scratch, APF chose to restore this old building, which had most of its walls destroyed.
During September, they finished placing the brick and placed the ceiling for the 30 room isolation area (below, construction in progress). The ceiling is made of tin sheets and bamboo sheets on top as protection from the heat. At the old shelter, there were only 13 isolation rooms and that was just not enough. With a total of 30 rooms, they expect to always have enough space to treat and contain dogs with contagious diseases.
In October, the floors, and walls of the brick rooms at the isolation area were tiled using ceramic tile, which can be easily disinfected (3 pictures below, ceramic tile is being placed).
Dogs with contagious diseases, such as respiratory problems, are placed in isolation to keep the rest of the dogs in the general population safe. The isolation building was a priority for APF in their move to the new location, and we were happy to be able to help! As soon as the rooms were completed, all 30 were occupied with the first group of sick dogs.