Womens Thoughts

Volunteer/ Fundraiser for Animal SOS - Sri Lanka

It all started when I read an article about Animal SOS in Animal Aid magazine, how the charity was formed. I was full of admiration for Kim Cooling who relied solely on donations and fundraising to set the sanctuary up and, more importantly, keeping it running. Having a social conscience, my husband and I donate to various animal charities and each year would select a different charity to set up a monthly donation to, that’s when I decided to support Animal SOS. I started receiving newsletters complete with graphic photos of disease-ridden strays. It broke my heart but what could I do about it, I was a Mum to a teenager at university, working extra hours and weekends to cover his rent, wife and full-time P.A with two dogs who require regular exercise. It wasn’t until my son returned from university, an adult, clearly independent, only needing the odd loan or taxi ride, that I realised I could spare some time to help them.

Animals SOS – Sri Lanka consists of a 4-acre plot with an emergency veterinary clinic to treat sick and injured stray animals, as well as being a safe-haven for the vulnerable and abused. Because of this they are able to save the lives of many otherwise doomed animals, providing high standards of veterinary care including blood screening and post-operative care after sterilisation – which is vital to ensure the survival of the animals. Sterilising and vaccinating these strays not only reduces the unwanted litters being born to a harsh life on the streets, but also helps to control the spread of rabies which, despite all current initiatives, is still prevalent in Sri Lanka. It’s a monumental task but they have a strong, committed team driven by compassion and a vision to secure a brighter hope for the street animals.

My attributes are planning and organising so I thought initially I would hold a fundraiser at home and set about organising a Vintage Afternoon Tea. Each time I went to Wales to visit my mother we hit the charity shops buying up all the vintage crockery. Various friends were enlisted to offer beauty therapies or sell products giving me a percentage of their takings for the charity. Local retailers I use regularly were approached for raffle prizes as well as gleaning unwanted gifts off friends and relatives and bottles for the bottle tombola. Various items were made to sell and the two days before the fundraiser were spent baking cakes to sell on the day. It was such hard work considering I’d never done one before but it was worth it, the house was full to bursting and everyone enjoyed themselves. Of course, most people spent their time in the kitchen with the tea and cakes which went down very well and in all we raised £325!  

I’d since learnt that Animal SOS had managed to secure a small shop in Woodford Green where Kim, the founder, is based. After storing boxes of items, for quite some time with the intention of doing a car boot sale or to put on EBay but never having the time I felt quite happy to take it all over to the shop for them to raise extra funds. It was well received and I also decided to offer my time one Saturday each month to help out in the shop, which I still do quite often taking a car full of stuff over each time, anything from coat hangers, carrier bags and bubble wrap to unwanted clothing and books from friends and family. It has now got to the point where people just contact me and say I’ve got a bag of ‘so and so’ would you like it for the shop?

For last year’s charity fundraiser I decided to do a Ladies Indulgence Afternoon so enlisted friends with beauty talents and sales as before as well as another raffle and I made some lovely padded fabric notice boards to sell and again making teas and cakes, but unfortunately the ladies preferred to grab a cup of tea, slice of cake and sit and chat with friends rather than purchase things!! We only managed to raised £150 this time, but it is not to be sniffed at, as it goes quite some way in Sri Lanka!  

These annual fundraisers have now become too much to do at home so this year I’m taking it to a local village hall, obviously it’s on a much bigger scale which makes me nervous but it means that I can enlist friends and family to help. I’ve secured all the tables but I also have to make a lot of items and collect things up for the stalls. Lord knows where I’m going to put it all! But I hope to raise a few hundred pounds and gain some awareness for the charity.

Trying to think of ways to raise a couple of thousand pounds brought up all kinds of challenges one of them being the Three Peaks Challenge. I set about organising this and initially we had a team of 11 but unfortunately with the costs involved, especially when you do it over 3 days instead of the usual 24 hours, most of the team backed out. I’m not one for giving up so once I secure a date from the few of us that are left I will put a message on Animal SOS’s Facebook page to summon up a few more challengers. This will take part in June/July and I hope to raise at least £2000 between us.

Raising funds is stressful, fun and challenging but I decided that I wanted to see where the money was going and what else they required funds for so my husband and I decided to go out to the sanctuary this year for 2 weeks to volunteer. Apparently March/April is the best time to go so we’ll be off on 4^th March and will be doing anything from admin, socialising, washing, grooming, cleaning out kennels and picking up injured/ill dogs off the streets. I would imagine it is going to be pretty exhausting as well as extremely emotional because the dogs out there are treated so differently to ours in the UK. We will take a few days out at the end to sight-see as we will also need to regain some sense of normality by then but we are really looking forward to it, even though a little apprehensive.  

Animal SOS – Sri Lanka are not only committed to rescuing and rehabilitating strays but are quite often involve themselves in pushing for effective animal welfare laws to underpin their work. Some locals see the strays as a nuisance and abuses can happen. The charity tries to home as many rehabilitated  animals as possible to kind people who will value their new pet and treat them well, however, this can be quite difficult as many pets are chained or caged in Sri Lanka and treated as guard dogs. Presently there are 300 dogs, including many disabled dogs, and around 7 cats in the sanctuary. Hope, the disabled adult bitch, has had a set of wheels made for her and to see her racing around the grounds you would think she didn’t know her back legs were unusable! Faith, her new puppy companion, will have wheels made for her when she is fully grown but for the moment is a very happy girl shuffling around on her bottom!

If you would like to find out more information on Animal SOS – Sri Lanka their website is http://www.animalsos-sl.com/. They also have a Facebook page where there are up-to-date reports on various animals that are taken in. A few months ago I set up a facility to collect used stamps, postcards and foreign coins/notes which we cash in to raise much-needed funds. If you have any of these please send them to me at Animal SOS – Sri Lanka, 64 Fair Acres, Prestwood, Great Missenden, Bucks, HP16 0LE.  

I very much look forward to reporting on my visit to Sri Lanka next!

Denize Woodstock