The power of giving

Buying a gift isn't easy.   What do you want the person you love to feel when you give them a gift?   What would they like to experience?

Last Christmas, my lovely hubby asked me if there was anything I'd like as a gift.   I didn't want any material goods - clothes, perfume etc etc.   I wanted a gift that would last, something that would give me joy every time I thought about it.

And so when my hubby asked what I'd like, it was easy to tell him.

SPANA work around the world to help working animals - horses, donkeys, camels, mules - and elephants.   And they'd launched an appeal for money they needed to buy a mobile unit.   The mobile unit was to be a veterinary clinic to help care for logging elephants in Myanmar, in South East Asia.

The elephants there work very hard.   They are involved in logging, not something I agree with, but that's not the elephants' fault.   They suffer from harness sores, and SPANA are involved in producing a new harness for the elephants to prevent rubbing and wounds.  Infectious viral diseases are also a problem, so SPANA are doing research to manage these and control them.

So my husband donated to the SPANA appeal for my Christmas present.  He made a donation towards SPANA and their appeal towards a veterinary clinic.  And I can't tell you what that meant to me.

Every time I think of this gift, I get a warm glow inside.

And that's 5 months after receiving the gift and the knowledge of the donation.

I feel good knowing this gift is helping elephants.  It's helping SPANA care for them.

There's nothing like the gift of giving.   Many animal charities have virtual gifts - yes, they've a range of material stuff as well.   But they also have virtual gifts to actively help animals so it's always worth a look to see what they have.

For instance, SPANA have Gifts for Health and Happiness at their Happy Hooves website.  You can treat animals to a range of gifts from medicine to water, dental checks, veterinary care, and training for owners so that they can take better care of them.   One of the things I love about SPANA is that they show owners how to take better care of their animals.  They show them how to look after them.  These animals NEED these - they are essential to their own wellbeing and happiness.

What animal lover could not love a gift which helps animals?

Help donkeys, horses and mules

Malnutrition causes great suffering and loss of life for thousands of working animals.

The animals can work up to 12 hours a day but don't get enough food - fuel - to keep them going.  They become malnourished and weak, vulnerable to illness and disease.  Their bones stick out, so they are a great risk from sores caused by rubbing harness.

SPANA (who also need your postage stamps) work to help thousands of working animals - horses, donkeys, mules - in a number of countries around the world.

SPANA's vet teams in the field treat animals who are suffering from malnutrition and they diagnose conditions which can lead to malnutrition. And crucially, they teach owners how to mix very nutritious animal feed using locally sourced, cost-effective food stuffs.

They can't do this without donations and if you donate today, a small group of SPANA supporters have agreed to match every donation received from the appeal up to a total of £40,477. 

Please visit SPANA's website and make a donation.  These animals are relying on our help. 
 

SPANA helps donkeys & horses

The video shows how SPANA is helping donkeys in Morocco, and hot on the hoof of my blog yesterday, SPANA sent an email with more news to show how public help is supporting their work.

Happy Horse lives in Morocco.  He works as a taxi horse, ferrying people and goods for his owner.  But Happy Horse was having chronic pain in his limbs as a result of the heavy loads he had been carrying on hard roads.  The tendons of his fetlock joints were contracted and tight.

Happy and his owner managed to get to SPANA's centre in Chémaia. Here, vets not only treated him to slacken his tight tendons;  they also gave him an anti-inflammatory injection, a tetanus vaccination and some antibiotics, and bandaged his legs with clean dry dressings to prevent infection.  Crucially, they also gave his owner advice on the importance of not giving Happy too much to carry in future, and giving him regular rest breaks. 

Happy is on the mend;  his owner is happy because his family couldn't survive without him; and I love these good news stories which show how much people - often on the other side of the world - who are willing to support SPANA can make a difference to animals. 

Keep sending those stamps and postcards in! 

Help donkeys, horses, mules, camels and livestock

We went to Morocco last year for a short holiday and stayed in Marrakech.  It was  an interesting holiday, and one of the great things for me about it was seeing the work SPANA are doing there first hand.

SPANA is an animal charity which works to improve the lives of working animals around the world through free veterinary care, education and training and emergency response.  It works in the world's poorest communities, where people would find it very difficult to provide for their families without their animals.

SPANA work across Africa and the Middle East, treating hundreds of thousands of donkeys, horses, mules, camels and livestock every year.

SPANA has permanent clinics in 7 countries (including Morocco) and also outreach and emergency programmes across the world in countries such as Sierra Leone, Kenya, Mongolia and Afghanistan.
SPANA have been working in Morocco since 1925.  They treat over 115,000 animals every year, and have 9 educational centres which I think is really important, to teach the children how to look after animals.  SPANA reach over 20,000 children a year through their education programmes.

While we were in Marrakech, we saw SPANA's horse drawn vehicles taking water to those hard-working horses and donkeys in need.  In this case, they were quenching the thirst of the caliche horses.

These horses were helping to quench the thirst of the caliche horses.



Here you can see SPANA's logo on the back

 

You can help SPANA continue with its work by collecting your stamps  & post-cards.  And you can visit SPANA's website at https://spana.org/our-work/free-veterinary-care