Kindness to Animals has no Boundaries
January 2023
Dear Animal-Kind Friends,
(Most live links have been removed, but you can always go to our AKI Blog page or the individual Partner Organization page to read more)
Looking back (and with a bit of looking ahead as well), our 2022 Annual Report is now available on our website. The report focuses on our three main programs (Support for our Partner Organizations, our Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program, and our Friendly Audit program), and describes how our Partners and Grantees used your donations, highlighting their accomplishments. I hope you enjoy it!
Looking ahead to 2023 (and beyond), you’ll see two changes to our Partner Organizations. (The AKI Board always meets in December to discuss whether we’ll add or drop any organizations in the upcoming year.)
As of this January 2023, The Six Freedoms-Ghana became an AKI Partner Organization! You may know them better as HorseSafety-Ghana, a two-time Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program Grantee. Horses in Ghana really need our help, and we’re sure that by working with The Six Freedoms, a local organization using traditional animal welfare methods and some innovative approaches, we’ll see big changes for Ghana’s neglected, badly treated, and abused horses. (Photo below, far too often, horses in Ghana are tied too tightly, left for too long standing in one spot, barely able to move; of course this is no way for a horse to live and it results in serious heath and emotional problems. Through training and awareness raising about horses and horse behaviors and needs, The Six Freedoms is trying to change this commonly used practice.)
The 2nd change for us in 2023 is about a new direction for our Partner Helping Hands for Hounds of Honduras. With over 40 years of experience in animal welfare in Honduras, we’ve been discussing with Pilar (founder & director of HHHH) how to use that experience to have maximum impact on cats, dogs, and animal shelters/rescues in Honduras…and how we can help. Already Pilar has been visiting and discussing ideas with other shelters in Tegucigalpa. During the year, we’ll keep you updated about this transformation….and the transformative effects we’re expecting.
AKI Blog Updates
Our January AKI Blog posts are about our Partner Have a Heart-Namibia and 2 of our Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program Grantees:
Twala Trust-Zimbabwe successfully completes their grant project! - This article takes you from where we left off in the November post about Twala Trust’s work and AKI’s grant to Twala, and runs through the last 2 months of the grant project, which provided dog food for about 600 weekly Doggy Tuesday attendees. (Photo below, an elderly dog who has been coming to Doggy Tuesday since he was a puppy and still doesn’t miss a Tuesday! We’re sure he made it to this ripe old age because of Twala’s good care and the healthy food they provide.)
Hero in my Hood (South Africa) successfully completes their grant project! - Read about the 6 organizations that received Hero in my Hood humane ed material, 5 in South Africa, 1 in Zimbabwe, and the great impact this material is having on the work of these organizations-and on the cats, dogs, and kids they serve. (Photo below, Edu Paw (South Africa) includes Hero in my Hood material in their lessons about kindness to all animals, including humans!)
Have a Heart-Namibia Update: Sept-Dec 2022 (Part 1) - Your donations support the AKI-HaH Emergency Fund and HaH’s Lifetime Care Program. Read about some of the cats and dogs you helped: Tiger, Blanka, Vladimir, and more!
Have a Heart-Namibia Update: Sept-Dec 2022 (Part 2) - Continuing from Part 1, in 2022, the AKI-HaH Emergency Fund treated 50 dogs and 32 cats. The HaH Lifetime Care Program gave booster shots and parasite preventative to 250 dogs and 26 cats. Read more about some of the cats and dogs you helped: Mia, Bobby, Dusty, and more!
MONTHLY DONORS, if you didn’t receive your end-of-year email message from me with the total you donated in 2022 and information about the impact of your donations, please get in touch! I sent all monthly donor thank you emails on December 7 and 8.
Request a Pet Portrait (example left) for a donation of only $15 or more!
THANK YOU!
We’re grateful to Lakes Animal Friendship Society (Denman Island, British Columbia, Canada) for donating humane ed material and for including a lovely picture and article, LAFS Connections-Ghana, in their Winter 2022/23 newsletter, (See the photo below of Ulla -The Six Freedoms with the LAF humane ed material that I carried to Ghana as it appeared in the LAFS newsletter.)
MORE CHANGES
I hope you’ll take some time to look through our website. I’ve been adding new pictures and I plan to keep deleting the older ones and adding recent ones—search around, you’ll find some fresh new faces, human, cat, dog, donkey, and horse faces!
I also updated Read what people are saying about AKI on the About AKI page. For example, Michelle, Chairperson of the SPCA-Grahamstown, a 2022 AKI Grant Program recipient said about their grant project, Who Let the Dogs Out, "…It has been a long road, but the end result is just fantastic and we will forever be indebted to AKI and its supporters for their generosity and kindness. It is incredible to see the work that AKI is involved with and the reach that you have globally - including Grahamstown now!"
This is one change that isn’t a good one, but it’s something we’re anticipating—with some dread—in 2023. I’ve been hearing from almost all of our Partner Organizations and many other animal welfare organizations about how inflation is hitting them hard. This is especially the case for organizations working in countries with a high incidence of poverty (all of “our” countries!). Staff members are having a very difficult time making ends meet. Pet food is so much more expensive than it was just months ago. Fuel to rescue animals, take them to the vet, and to provide the animal welfare services that our Partners provide—everything is getting more difficult. And sadly, I know it’s also difficult for many of our supporters as well. We only ask that if you are able to give, that you keep Animal-Kind International and our supported organizations in mind.
As always, we are very grateful to you for your kindness and generosity. Our success is your success, our achievements for animals are only possible because of your support. We Are Very Gratefully Yours, Karen Menczer, Founder/Director & the Animal-Kind International Board AKI has Partner Organizations in Uganda (2 partners), Namibia (2 partners), DR Congo, Ghana, South Sudan, Liberia, Honduras, Jamaica, and Armenia. You can donate to AKI’s general fund or designate your donation to one or more of our Partner Organizations. Our 2022 grantees work in: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa (3 grantees), Zambia, and Zimbabwe. AKI: Since 2007, helping animals and the people who care for them in some of the poorest countries. We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization; donations to AKI are tax deductible in the US to the extent the law allows. 100% of your donations are used to support our Partner Organizations & our Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program.