Equitarian Blog, Donkey Sanctuary Day 2 Hi to the Equitarian cyberspace world. The blog today is coming to you from Jennie Lane. Our second day of the workshops at the Donkey Sanctuary (DS) started with a warm welcome and brief introduction from David Cook, the CEO of the Donkey Sanctuary. David reviewed some of the Donkey Sanctuary’s primary objectives and covered the mission, vision and values they hold as an animal welfare charity. The DS is the 2nd largest international animal welfare charity registered in the UK after the World Wildlife Fund, and ranks 91 out of over 150,000 registered charities overall in the UK. He also shared that last year the overall income was over $53 million dollars. The DS has 3 main divisions including domestic rescue and sanctuary issues and research, donkey assisted therapy and international work. Over the next five years they have major expansion plans in their international work sector, are using a much more community based, educational approach and are looking to increase collaboration with existing in-county programs and networks. Following David’s introduction, we heard from Dr. Stephen Blakeway who has worked with Equitarian Initiative events in past years and directs the international program. While the DS’s goal is to grow from reaching 1 million donkeys currently to 2 million donkeys by 2020, Stephen challenged us to seek solutions to reach the nearly 100 million working equines around the world. The remainder of the day was split into four organized workshops. The day was facilitated by Alex Mayer, the DS’s International Community Partnership and Education Officer. Prior to joining the DS Alex worked in many countries including Borneo, Kenya, the Philippines, South Africa, Japan and Turkey in education. His expertise was evident as he facilitated the group with ease. With creative ways to split into working groups and create conversations between colleagues, we worked through a variety of topics and discussions regarding our own individual programs, extended networks and community involvement. For one activity, each of us had been asked to prepare a story ahead of time relaying one event that had happened in the last 12 months that we thought had been the most significant change that we had seen in the programs we are involved with. We heard one story from Ramesh, an Indian colleague, which was especially poignant. He eloquently illustrated the importance of taking time to understand a situation and the power of simple human compassion. The story went like this: The Donkey Sanctuary India went to a new brick kiln in a remote area where they had heard donkey welfare was very bad. When they arrived it was evident, that indeed the welfare conditions were horrendous, but Ramesh and the other DS representatives were chased away with whips by the donkey owners. As they were leaving they noticed an old woman making chapatis, wearing rags and shivering against a damp cold. When Ramesh inquired why she didn’t put up some shelter, she replied “this is my destiny” to live in a poor, desolate harsh conditions. The desperation and finality of that statement particularly saddened Ramesh; he believed that no human should live that way and feel that it is their destiny. When questioned further, she explained that the men and children work hard all day in the kilns, and then they go out and drink at night and despite her repeatedly asking her family to build a proper shelter, there was no shelter. He also realized that a lot of the harsh treatment of the donkeys was directly related to the harsh conditions the people endured. Their behavior was, at least in part, a translation of their cruel life onto their animals, rather than deliberate, specific cruelty to the animals. Ramesh and his team quickly organized and talked to the brick kiln director, and by the end of the day, the team had constructed a rudimentary but vastly improved shelter for over 5 families in the immediate vicinity. Then, as they were leaving, the donkey owners and brick kiln workers were lined up with their donkeys (the same people who had chased them away with whips earlier) asking for help with various ailments their donkeys had. Since then, this brick kiln community has vastly improved donkey welfare and a donkey welfare ambassador now works at the kiln and provides representation at other kilns. Ramesh is now also trying to coordinate facilitating improved medical care for the women and children in the areas near the kilns, coordinate state veterinary services for the equines with human health care providers and also work in policy advocacy for the donkeys. In the afternoon, we had a lengthy discussion regarding networks centered around the following four questions: What lessons can we learn? Where do they get their resources? Where does the energy come from? How do they know they are effective? Besides engaging in some helpful discussions regarding networks, we heard a few examples of networks from Kenya. One was of Kenyan vets, almost like a Kenyan ECN network; another was a consortium of Kenyan animal welfare groups all working together in the policy and advocacy arenas. Finally we shared skills we have and skills we would like to gain and interactively placed them on geographic maps to visualize where in the world we work and where collectively we need more skills and resources. The day had a bit of a hybrid leadership/participatory research/community involvement/ corporate retreat-like feel to it. By the afternoon the activities started to drag on a bit and seemed a little less relevant than the morning. However, overall the day was useful to continue networking and learn from others about their experiences and understand the scope of programs the DS is involved with across the world. The Donkey Sanctuary sits on a bluff overlooking the Jurassic coast along the southern edge of England. Yesterday afternoon we were treated with a rainy walk in the woods with the DS’s conservationist where we learned all the sorts of ways the organization is working towards environmental stewardship and conservation in their area (they’ve worn awards and such!). To further enjoy the local area, five of us decided to walk back to town that evening and enjoyed a nice stroll through fields, woods and along the coast line. We met up with the remainder of our crew and enjoyed a delicious dinner at a waterfront café (the kind that makes you believe the news that the UK has a decent food scene, because up until this, we were fairly skeptical). Amy, Camie and the international contingent of Equitarians and DS employees are staying for a few more days of workshop but the rest of us head back to the USA tomorrow and are thinking about how to make our own endeavors more sustainable and collaborate beyond the borders of the veterinary profession. *First photo Julie and Kevin Brown (of the Donkey Sanctuary) discussing Networks. *Second photo Jay hanging out with some donkeys. And the least “worked” Jay has ever looked in an Equitarian photo.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 02:56:09 +0000
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