Kindness to Animals has no Boundaries
January 2024
Dear Animal-Kind Friends,
In our December newsletter, I mentioned that we had created a Pet Food Fund for Twala Trust’s Doggy Tuesday—and that was a hint of big news to come. Now it’s time to unveil the news: Twala Trust in Zimbabwe is our newest AKI Partner Organization! That means we’ll be raising money and providing ongoing support to them (no more proposals, no more grant competitions!) Our 1st disbursement to Twala Trust is specifically for dog food for their very popular Doggy Tuesday (a free vet clinic, held weekly at the Twala Trust sanctuary in Goromonzi, where ~600 dogs spend the day getting checked by a vet and getting vet care if needed, eating from the dog food buffet, and hanging out with their buddies). The 1st donation we received to the Doggy Tuesday Pet Food Fund is thanks to a very generous donor, in memory of his wife, who was one of the kindest animal lovers.
Photo: Lining up at the Twala Trust Sanctuary for Doggy Tuesday. Those dogs sure look healthy! That’s because these kids learn to take good care of their dogs, they’re proud of their dogs, and they think of their dogs as their friends….all because of Twala Trust’s Doggy Tuesday!
Check out our AKI Blog and this post about Twala Trust going from Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program grantee (2022 and 2023) to AKI Partner Organization. We now have nine animal rescue and protection partners in Africa. We welcome (and need!) your donation to the Twala Trust Pet Food Fund!
Two of our 2023 Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program recipients completed their grant projects:
Matabeleland Animal Rescue & Equine Sanctuary in Zimbabwe trapped, neutered, vaccinated, notched (an ear), and released 103 cats! They also prevented the stoning to death of many cats and educated kids about why that was cruel and wrong, and how spay/neuter is the way to go. READ MORE HERE
For their AKI grant project, Morocco Animal Aid provided food for their 550 shelter animals and vet consultations and vet care for homeless cats and dogs injured on Morocco’s streets or who belong to families unable to pay for vet care. READ THIS POST about the many lucky cats and dogs who were helped by Morocco Animal Aid with the grant from AKI.
Photo: It’s feeding time! Dogs at Morocco Animal Aid’s main shelter in Assersif wait patiently (and pose) for food (and say thank you to AKI donors for providing the funds for our Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program!)
We also sent Morocco Animal Aid a special project grant to help with their earthquake disaster relief. READ ABOUT MOROCCO’S EARTHQUAKE RESPONSE HERE.
AKI Partner Organization Helping Hands for Hounds of Honduras said goodbye to some of our old friends who were long-time residents at their Nereida Montes de Oca Sanctuary and welcomed a family of new puppies.
More News from AKI
MONTHLY DONORS! I hope all of you have received your end-of-year email message from me with the total you donated during 2023 and what your donations have accomplished. I sent an email to each of you during the 1st week of December, so if you haven’t gotten yours yet, please check your spam folder and/or get in touch. I’d be happy to re-send it, if you haven’t seen it.
Our pie charts are live! On the AKI website, click on any of our animal rescue and protection partners in Africa, Jamaica, or Honduras, and you’ll see how that Partner spent your donations in 2023. Here’s how AKI Partner Organization Liberia Animal Welfare & Conservation Society spent your donations in 2023:
Liberia Animal Welfare & Conservation Society provides the only cat and dog care in Lofa County, Liberia. They do this by holding animal care clinics in remote towns and villages every week, where people line up with their pets so they can get anti-parasite treatments, vaccines, wound care, and good advice about how to take care of their cats and dogs. Even though the areas that LAWCS serves are so poor, people really care about their cats and dogs. In conjunction with their clinics, LAWCS has been supporting a Humane Education Program in schools and communities. LAWCS’s devotion, and stick-to-it-ive-ness (I like to call it) really pays off in the care that these communities show towards their pets (photos below, from LAWCS’s community animal clinics, showing 2 cats and a dog being vaccinated). And for several years, as a Partner Organization, we’ve been working with, supporting, and strengthening the good work of LAWCS!
Did you know that Liberia and the US have a very close connection? In 1816, a group of white Americans founded the American Colonization Society (ACS) to resettle free African-Americans and freed slaves in Liberia. It wasn’t all about good intentions! The ACS viewed the free African Americans as a “problem,” and saw Liberia as a solution. Liberia became the second (after Haiti) Black republic in the world at that time! The capital of Liberia, Monrovia, was named after US President James Monroe. It’s one of 2 world capitals named after a US President (what’s the other capital?)
Curious about how donors designated their donations to AKI in 2023? Interested to know if your favorite Partner Organization received lots of designated donations? Our pie chart showing how you designated your 2023 donations is available here. And before the end of February, our Annual Report-2023 will be available on that page, as well.
Our Friendly Audits Program is gearing up again! (scroll to the middle of the website page to find out more). It was going strong during COVID, when people were at home looking for things to do, and then participation (mainly volunteers) dropped off. Well, it’s back with 2 new volunteer mentors, but lots of organizations in Africa and Latin America/Caribbean looking for help from mentors. Interested in being a mentor? Do you have any of the skills or interests mentioned on the page above? Contact me!
At our end of the year Board meeting, along with discussing whether to add a new Partner Organization in the upcoming year, we discuss whether we should drop any of our Partners. There are many reasons we may drop a Partner and it certainly doesn’t necessarily reflect badly on the Partner. At the Dec 2023 Board meeting, we decided to drop Save Animals-Armenia as a Partner Organization. Mainly, we felt we want to focus more on Africa and Latin America, areas that we see as our strengths. Also, over the years of our long partnership with SA-Armenia, we felt that recently we began going in different directions, had different ideas of how to improve animal welfare. We wish Save Animals-Armenia and the Armenian animal welfare community all the best and we hope to hear great things about their work in the coming years.
With gratitude for your kindness and your much-needed and appreciated support,
Karen Menczer, Founder/Director
& the Animal-Kind International Board
AKI has Partner Organizations in Uganda, Namibia, DR Congo, Ghana, South Sudan, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Honduras, and Jamaica. You can donate to AKI’s general fund or designate your donation to one or more of our Partner Organizations.
Our 2023 (6th annual) Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program grantees work in: Zimbabwe (2 grantees), Tanzania (2 grantees), South Africa (2 grantees), Morocco, and Namibia.
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 A-KI 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.