By Karen Menczer | Executive Director, Animal-Kind International
Usually December is a slow month at the Uganda Society for the Protection & Care of Animals, with so many people leaving the country on holiday, so many heading to the village to be with family. But we're happy to report that even though slow, 29 lucky cats and dogs were adopted during December (See pictures of 4 rehomed USPCA alumni).
I was in Uganda for a few weeks in December (on US Agency for International Development work) and spent my weekends at The Haven. As always when I visit there, I am overwhelmed by the wonderful cats and dogs that The Haven cares for, the number of rescues-every day, day in and day out, the dedication and hard work of the staff. And as with each of my visits, the number of dogs (more so than cats) at the shelter grew since my last visit. The Haven is bursting at the seams!
I met with USPCA Haven staff and some of the board members and volunteers. We came up with one way to alleviate some of the pressure on the staff: enlist volunteers to do post-adoption home visits. We decided to put out a request for volunteers, organize them according to where they live in Kampala (Entebbe too), train them, give them the post-adoption home visit form, and let them go!
Post-adoption home visits are usually fun to do--although some times you get a bad surprise when you visit an adoptive home, most USPCA adopters take good care of their pets.
Already, our post-adoption volunteer force has been busy. Check out the picture of the dog on the trampoline, one of the homes visited by a newly trained volunteer. This was obviously one of the good surprises, a well-cared for, healthy, happy dog! Another volunteer visited 2 USPCA alumni living together at the same home and found them to be happy and healthy too (see picture).
While this takes a burden off of Haven Manager and Assistant Manager, Alex and Jackie, it doesn't relieve the burden of over-crowding. While I was in Kampala, we discussed ways to finance land purchase and people to approach who might help us find land. In the short time I had in Kampala, we weren't able to find any suitable, reasonably priced plots to visit.
We know there's no other way-we need to find a larger plot-so we will keep at this by raising money, talking to everyone we know about the great need, imploring landowners to sell to the USPCA (or partially donate) on good terms that we can afford.
We are so grateful that you are a part of this effort!
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
