As I write this letter the
charity is one month short of its fifth birthday and we have achieved so much in this
short time. We have to be very proud of our achievements and we are continuing to develop
our programme, currently:
We are teaching donkey care and management
in 8 local schools.
We have 14 students embarking on a 2 year
equine paravets course at college.
We have well over 100 donkeys on the donkey
scheme.
We were able to assist the Government with
vaccines during a recent outbreak of African Horse Sickness.
We run an annual horse and donkey show to
promote better breeding, care and handling and to encourage and reward those who set an
example by managing their animals well.
These achievements are on top of the day to
day training we are giving in equine care and management. We continue to run regular
clinics at the markets and attend to patients that are brought to our centre. Having two
resident volunteer vets broadens the scope of the services we can offer to the community.
The horse and donkey owners know that they
have an organisation that is there to help and support them. We strive to make a real
difference to the lives of many people, and of course their horses or donkeys
Everything is aimed at a broad equine
education for the Gambian communities. It is important that the communities are learning
about good management and preventative care, so that their animals remain fit, healthy and
ready to work. Working with communities is seen as key to all this and a long term aim is
to have a trained Gambian equine support team of Paravet, farrier and harness maker in
every district.
We appreciate the encouragement that we
receive from The Gambian Government and we have recently worked closely with them in the
initiatives mentioned above. All this has been achieved as a result of your generosity and
as a result of the hard work of our volunteers. Above all it is the perfect example of
what can be achieved when organisations and individuals are prepared to help each other
and work together to achieve results.
Thank you all so much and on behalf of
everyone at 'Horse and Donkey' we would like to wish you a very Happy Christmas and a
peaceful and healthy New Year.
Horse and Donkey Changes
We were very sad to say goodbye to Janet
Thurnheer, our volunteer working in The Gambia. She has worked with us for a year and had
opted to work for a second year but for personal reasons had to leave half way through.
Janet was incredibly hard working and energetic and we are immensely grateful to her for
her help. Her departure left a very big gap for us to fill. The work involved in
administering all the projects is now far more than any one person can be expected to cope
with and it is a tribute to Janet's energy that we now have 3 volunteers working more than
full time in The Gambia. Recruiting more Gambian staff to complement them is a high
priority when funds permit.
However, every cloud has a silver lining and
we are delighted to welcome Michelle Connolly, Laura Craighead, Lesley Steele and Momodou
Cham. The first 3 are volunteers who have come to help us out. And Momodou has joined our
senior staff in The Gambia. We welcome them and wish them a very happy stay with us.
Michelle and Lesley are both vets and though
they originally came for shorter stays, both of them have very kindly opted to stay on for
longer as they have enjoyed their time with us so much. Michelle is also helping at the
nearby Chimp Rehabilitation Camp while Stella, the director, is unwell and we are very
grateful to her for helping us out. These new additions to our team have had an incredible
impact and the yard is now really buzzing again. The Donkey Club has re started after a
lull. The staff are all having riding lessons again and the programme of teaching in
schools is going well.
Jibril, our manager, has taken a two year
sabbatical to attend the new scholarship course at The Gambia College and Borri is
embarking on his second year at College on one of our scholarships. M'Bye has also
returned to spend more time with his family so there have been a lot of changes in the
last year.
African Horse Sickness
African Horse Sickness is a problem that
appears from time to time in our equine press. In the comfort of the British climate we
assume that it is somebody else's problem. The "tropical" Blue Tongue virus that
appeared in our midst shows us that these things are no long 'other people's problems'.
Working in The Gambia, African Horse Sickness is something that we always have to be
concerned about, and an outbreak occurred in September.
This is a nasty disease which is fatal for
horses and can make donkeys very ill. Thanks to help from The Donkey Sanctuary,
RSPCA International and ILPH we were able to buy sufficient
vaccines for the Government Veterinary services to carry out a vaccination programme.
We invited Philip Ivens, a vet from the Royal
Veterinary College who has an interest in tropical diseases, to come and monitor the
vaccination programme. We are extremely grateful to him for taking time out from his work
to assist us.
There have been no deaths due to African Horse
Sickness for several weeks now and we would like to express our sincere thanks to those
who funded the vaccines.
I would also like to extend my thanks to Dr
Jaw, Director of Veterinary Services, Demba Jallow, Saloum Jallow and Michelle Connolly
for administering the programme, which has been a great success.
Another partial goodbye and our thanks go to
Saloum, who has worked with Horse and Donkey as our part time para vet since the charity
began. Saloum had left us to become disease surveillance officer. We offered him our
congratulations but that we hoped to continue to work closely with him.
A little donkey means so much
The Donkey Project
I continue to be moved by some of the
partnerships that have been formed as a result of this project. I am constantly telling
people that though the donkeys cannot speak, they can still tell me a great deal and the
way little Spot snuggles up to his mistress and only responds well to her and her husband
speaks volumes. Spot's carer's husband is blind and depends upon his donkey and cart to
get around.
Lucky too speaks volumes. He is a fat and
fairly lazy donkey, whose carer has even gone to the trouble of whitewashing his stable.
Most donkeys are either so down trodden that they show no reactions at all or they are
totally headshy and its impossible to do anything around their heads. I was pleased to see
that our project donkeys are different. Lucky is happy to discuss things with his carer
without fears of reprisals.
Lucky is among some of the donkeys who have
gone to a school. This gives the children the opportunity to learn about them and
appreciate them more. They perform useful tasks, ploughing in the school garden, taking
unwell children to the clinic and fetching supplies from the nearest main road as the
school supply lorry's are sometimes unable to reach the more remote schools and are forced
to offload supplies on the edge of the road.
Joy is another donkey who has formed a close
bond with her carer who is a widow struggling to raise several children. Thanks to Joy she
has managed to cultivate a very large farm which she says is seven times larger then the
one she had last year. Joy is covered in scars from her previous home, but now she has
confidence in her new carer and listens to every word that Fatu says. When I pointed out
to Fatu that the donkey seemed to be constantly listening to her when she spoke, Fatu put
her arm round the donkey and said "She's my friend, she has suffered, I have suffered
and we understand each other." It is moments like that which make me realise what a
valuable contribution the donkey project makes to everyone, donkeys and recipients alike.
To everyone waiting for news of their donkeys,
I must apologise, events are conspiring to delay the chain of information. Janet and M'Bye
were running the project so when they left there was the essential hand over period.
Michelle was really getting the hang of it when the African Horse Sickness outbreak struck
and her duties took her to the vaccination programme and though I would love to use Sue
Adams, the scheme's administrator's, house move as an excuse, I can't as she is as
efficient as ever and is simply awaiting the information and pictures from me. On each
trip I take several hundred pictures and it takes time to sift through them. I can only
apologise and assure you all that we are working as hard as we can to get the information
to you more quickly and smoothly.
The Donkey Project is back up and running and
if you want to buy a donkey and/or a plough and donkey cart, please look on the web site
and contact Sue. However, you will need to be patient as we have to reorganise the staff
at Sambel Kunda to provide a Manager for this very worthwhile project. |