NOTICES AND UPCOMING EVENTS
Thank You for Help with the Clinic
Due to some very generous donations, we have managed to find funding for the nurse practitioner for the foreseeable future. We would like to give very sincere and heartfelt thanks to the wonderful Horse and Donkey and Chimp supporters who came to the rescue. Thanks to you many people have had treatment for malaria this year. Hopefully by next year the clinic will have the funding to provide mosquito nets for the old and young as well as pregnant women of our community, who are all at greater risk from malaria. It is a huge weight off our minds, thank you so much.
Show Days
A healthy working horse or donkey can increase the income of his/her owner by as much as 500%, so through our work we are very much involved in helping to alleviate poverty in rural areas.
We help by providing basic veterinary care both at our centre and through mobile clinics at the local markets, as well as providing training in schools, to farmers groups and at college level. Our centre is also used for training farriers and harness makers and we are working on improving the design of the locally used carts and harness.
We strongly believe in rewarding the people who take good care of their animals and two years ago we introduced an annual horse show. The purpose of this was to reward those who took good care of their animals and to encourage others by explaining to them how they could improve the care and welfare of the horses and donkeys in their care. The classes were initially judged purely on condition and handling, but we are also gradually including conformation in an attempt to encourage selective breeding. The shows attract a large number of visitors and provide the perfect opportunity for our volunteers to distribute headcollars and bits and to explain to visitors how they can improve their equine management. In addition to the showing classes, we also hold an interschools donkey gymkhana in which the local schools can participate for a shield. This demonstrates to the children that caring for their animals can be fun and we provide prizes and medals for children who take particularly good care of their animal or encourage others to do the same. These children are known as our ‘Donkey Ambassadors’.
Above all show days are FUN and an ideal way of bringing the community together. The elders are asked to hand out the prizes and the village ladies sell meals, snacks and drinks to those from further afield.
We have volunteers from UK who come out to judge and to help with organizing and stewarding the shows. Last year we held two shows, one on the North Bank of the river and one on the South bank of the river, these proved to be enormously successful.
This year, if funding permits, we plan to hold two shows in early November and we are seeking your assistance with sponsorship.
We fully appreciate that we are living in tough economic conditions and that everyone is having to economize, but if you could possibly consider sponsoring any part, even if it is just a place prize, of the following list of expenses, we would be extremely grateful and you would be participating in an event that plays a significant part in not only reducing the suffering to animals now, but also improving the lives of the animals AND their owners in the future.
We shall need prizes for 14 classes (seven at each show) consisting of the following:
1st prize - £20
2nd Prize - £16
3rd Prize - £12
4th Prize - £10
5th Prize - £8
6th Prize - £5
Total £71 per class
We shall also need a Trophy for the Supreme Champion and small trophies for the winners. These are highly prized and much appreciated. We also need £10 for each of the Donkey Ambassadors, five prizes were awarded last year, we hope that as word spreads, more youngsters will be eligible for a prize.
We will make mention on our website of all companies who help with this initiative and a list of those who took part will be included with an article in our next Newsletter. In addition, if you would like us to distribute publicity or advertise your company at the show itself, we would be happy to do so.
This would be a wonderful chance to do something very positive at very little cost, to get one step closer to poverty alleviation and improved equine welfare in The Gambia and your help in any way whatsoever and how ever small, would be very much appreciated.
Online donations can be made through the JustGiving 'Show Days' Fundraiser page here.
BUY A DONKEY FOR A NEEDY FAMILY - ANNOUNCEMENT
The 'Buy a Donkey for a Needy Family' project has been temporarily suspended. If you wish to take part in one of our fundraisers please visit our website 'How You Can Help' section for many other ideas and projects. Thank you.
Stella Marsden
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It is with great sorrow that we
have to tell you of the death of Stella Marsden, the co founder of The Gambia Horse and
Donkey Trust and the founder and director of The Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Trust. Stella was a remarkable person and dedicated her life to the welfare and protection of the chimps who came into her care and she would go out of her way for any other species of animal that required help. Stella grew up in The Gambia and had great affection for the country and its |
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| people. In the local community she did everything she could to support the villagers and through her initiative, a clinic has been built and the school now boasts 12 teachers and well over 300 pupils, thanks to the school sponsorship scheme. She had vision and was constantly trying to find ways to generate work and income for the local people. |
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| It was Stella's wish to be buried in The
Gambia, which she loved so much, so we are taking her back on the 1st February for burial. A memorial Service will be held on the 19th April, which would have been Stella's birthday, in Cheltenham College Chapel, Cheltenham. |
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If anyone would like to make a donation in
Stella's memory, this can be done on The Chimp Rehabilitation Trusts website. She will be sorely missed by her family, friends and colleagues and especially by Lazarus, who owed his life to her and never forgot her kindness. There was always a resounding whinny of greeting whenever |
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| Stella appeared on the yard and
they had a very close relationship. To read Tributes from around the world, please click HERE. |
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GHDT Justgiving.com Fundraiser
Sally Barron and Vicki Miller, two very good supporters of ours, have created a fundraising page on Justgiving.
If anyone would like to make a donation towards much needed equipment such as bits, wormers and veterinary supplies on Sally and Vicki's page, to help them to reach their target, it would be much appreciated.
Their Justgiving page can be found here.
Justgiving.com
We’ve teamed up with Justgiving.com, the UK’s leading online fundraising website, so you can donate and raise funds for the GHDT online.
Using Justgiving saves us costs and reduces our admin burden, so going online is by far the most efficient way of supporting us. It’s easy to make a single or monthly donation with a credit or debit card online:
All you need to do is click here.
Justgiving reclaims Gift Aid automatically and pays your donation directly to us at the end of every week, and the site is secure.
Justgiving also makes it easy to raise money: you can create an online fundraising page in minutes to collect donations for any sponsored event or appeal.
You can create your own for any event here.
Fundraising pages are just like paper sponsorship forms, except they’re online. Simply personalise your page with a photo and message and email the web address to all your contacts. Friends, family, work colleagues and anyone else, from anywhere in the world, can then make a donation using your page.
You can create a fundraising page for absolutely anything. You could get sponsored to run, swim, cycle, get fit, grow a moustache or have your head shaved. The only limit is your imagination.
If you have any questions, or need any help, you can contact the Justgiving helpdesk on 0845 021 2110 or email Monday to Friday from 9am to 6pm.
African Horse Sickness
An outbreak of African Horse Sickness is having a major impact on the lives of the peasant farmers in The Gambia. The Gambian farmers depend heavily on their animals for survival and this outbreak has hit them in the middle of the farming season, when they depend most heavily on their equine partners.
The Gambia Horse and Donkey Trust (GHDT) responded immediately by purchasing vaccines, but the scale of the outbreak was beyond the scope of such a small charity and the resources available to the Government Veterinary Department are very limited. The GHDT then made appeals to other larger animal welfare charities who immediately came to their aid. The Donkey Sanctuary, RSPCA International and The International League for the Protection of Horses have all contributed equal amounts of £3000 to enable The Gambia Horse and Donkey staff and the Gambia Government Livestock officers to carry out an emergency vaccination programme.
At the invitation of The Gambia Horse and Donkey Trust, Philip Ivens, a member of staff from the Royal Veterinary College, University of London, is flying to The Gambia to monitor the situation, liaise with the Government vets and supervise the vaccination programme.
Heather Armstrong, C.E.O. of The Gambia Horse and Donkey Trust says," We are extremely grateful to these organizations and to Philip Ivens for their very prompt response to our appeal, this is a wonderful example of how, when organizations work together, great things can be achieved."
Surgical Instruments If anyone has a particularly good relationship with their vet, we were wondering if you could ask them if they have any surgical instruments that they no longer use please? With our expanding training scheme for veterinary assistants, we are looking for instruments to enable us to teach them simple surgical procedures |
British Veterinary Association The British Veterinary Association have very kindly donated four microscopes for the use of our students. One will go up to our laboratory and the other three will go to The Gambia College to benefit the students who we hope to place there in September if sufficient funds can be raised. |
RSPCA Thanks to a grant from the RSPCA (Colwyn Bay Branch) we were able to build day stables for animals visiting. The building has been much admired and a picture can be seen on the website here. It is very cool and provides welcome respite for sick animals that have travelled considerable distances for treatment. |
Join Our Email Mailing List If you would like to apply to join the Gambia Horse and Donkey Trust email list, for immediate news updates, please submit your name and email address to Liz Serinken. There is no fee to join the email list and the email address you provide will not be passed on to a third party. |
Gambia Experience Gambia Experience are currently offering very competitive prices for flights to the Gambia. This is a wonderful opportunity for supporters/volunteers who would like to see our work, or visit their sponsored or purchased donkeys, to do so. For more information on prices and flights please visit the Gambia Experience website. |
eBay for Charity The GHDT is now fundraising with eBay for Charity - visit our 'About My Charity' Page. Details are also available on our 'How You Can Help' page |
