East Africa

Kenya

In Lamu East, Kenya, countless unwanted cats and kittens lead miserable lives of hunger, neglect and pain on the streets. With not a single shelter or veterinary clinic and no government help, street cats are left to breed unchecked, resulting in a deadly population boom and immense suffering for the animals. Together with a skilled team of local veterinarians, NFA conducts regular trap-neuter-release (TNR) programs to end the tragic cycle of birth, disease and death for Lamu East’s street cat population.

In Nairobi, Kenya, we support the Kenya Society for the Protection and Care of Animals (KSPCA), a shelter home to over 250 dogs. They are also on the frontlines of emergency rescue, cruelty investigations, and community-based animal welfare programs. We help cover the cost of pet food and vital veterinary care. Recently, we also provided critical funding for the mass sterilization, vaccination and general treatment of street dogs in impoverished slums in Nairobi. We are also raising funds to help them cope with the rise in abandoned dogs in the wake of intense flooding across the country.

In Kenya, we exposed a slaughterhouse where 2,000 donkeys were killed for their skins every month, which were then exported to China. Thanks in part to our efforts to raise awareness about the situation, donkey slaughter has now been banned in Kenya. The global purchase of donkeys and donkey skins is a savage operation run by organized Chinese syndicates who show no mercy for animals, or for people who get in their way. They often descend on rural villages and steal donkeys, or force owners to sell at giveaway prices, then slaughter the animals in makeshift abattoirs.

Despite the legal ban on their slaughter, donkeys continue to be killed in their droves for the insatiable Chinese donkey skin trade. Together with our partner, the Kenya Society for the Protection of Animals (KSPCA), we are working to help protect these gentle creatures. In 2023, we donated three off-road motorbikes to the Anti-Stock Theft Unit, aiming to reduce illicit activities.

In early 2024, we secured funds to deploy a specialized team to the high-risk areas of Kajiado, Machakos, Kiambu and Nairobi for an initial visit. Our team provided crucial treatment for rescued donkeys in the area and will conduct strategic surveillance initiatives across donkey slaughter hotspots. Our plan is to continue fundraising so that our team can sustain this vital work for at least the next year.

Tanzania

In Tanzania, Network for Animals supports the Arusha Society for the Protection of Animals (ASPA), a small but dedicated organization that works tirelessly to improve the overall welfare of Tanzania’s suffering street dog population. In addition to the monthly grant we provide for food and veterinary supplies, NFA helps finance emergency rescues, regular mobile clinics and educational outreach programs.

In 2022, we met Kwikwi, a street dog living in a storm drain on the streets of Arusha. Heavily pregnant and suffering from a severe neurological condition that causes constant tremors, this sweet girl nonetheless greeted us with a wagging tail, as if she knew we were there to help. We provided emergency medical care for Kwikwi, ensuring her immediate survival, and she successfully gave birth to her puppies shortly after. With no animal shelters in Arusha, we rushed her to our partner’s offices – but while her puppies were all adopted within Tanzania, we because of her special needs Kwikwi was not adopted. . Thanks to our generous donors, we were able to transport Kwikwi to a new forever home on a beautiful farm in the UK. Kwikwi will be looked after with love and care for the rest of her days by her new owners, Daren and Vicki, and a lively family of fur-siblings - 12 dogs, 10 cats, chickens and donkeys!

ASPA also works to deworm, vaccinate, sterilize and provide veterinary treatment to as many street dogs in rural areas as possible. But what the dogs really needed was a quiet, sterile place in which to receive treatment. Through our donors’ generosity, we were able to help fund a fully-equipped mobile veterinary unit to provide care to these vulnerable animals in a secure and stress-free environment.

In late 2023, an crisis broke out in Mwanza, where the sickness of a single rabid dog sparked a dog-killing rampage. At least 32 dogs were brutally murdered with sticks and stones, despite there being no evidence that they had rabies, and we knew we had to step in. We were able to help rush the ASPA team to the area, who worked with a local team to vaccinate almost 1,000 dogs across six villages in just three days, helping to stop the killing in its tracks.

An extensive undercover investigation by Network for Animals in June 2021 revealed the enormous scale and utter cruelty of the Chinese donkey skin trade in Africa. The Chinese use donkey skins to make a medicine called ejiao (pronounced “uh-jee-ow”), which has never been proven to work, and which kills millions of donkeys every year.

In Tanzania, we sent a team to investigate and chronicle illegal slaughtering practices at a Chinese-run donkey slaughterhouse in the north of the Shinyanga region. What we found directly opposed the regulations in place for animal welfare and humane slaughter. Tens of thousands of donkeys were being killed each month, and rather than giving them the compassion of a gentle, pain-free death, slaughterers were cruelly bludgeoning them with hammers.

Together with our partner, the Arusha Society for the Protection of Animals (ASPA), Network for Animals successfully lobbied the Tanzanian government to shut down the abattoir. This was a colossal victory for donkey welfare. In pursuit of more long-term solutions, we are also financing an educational outreach program to inform donkey owners of the proper care for their animals.

In 2022, ASPA alerted us to a dreadful situation at a market in a rural region called Mirongoine. Every week, more than 1,000 donkeys are forced to walk 10 miles (16 kilometers) in the blistering heat while massively overladen, severely injured, hungry and without access to fresh drinking water. To give these donkeys some much-needed relief, we were able to construct a shaded area with built-in water troughs that can accommodate up to 200 donkeys. We laid pipes connected to the nearby municipal water supply and are pumping in an ample amount of water for thirsty donkeys. Our partner also regularly visits the market to treat the donkeys and monitor their welfare.

With the help of our partner, the Brady Hunter Foundation, NFA constructed an additional three shaded areas with built-in water troughs in November 2023 to accommodate the remaining 600 donkeys who visit the market each week. In the remote town of Geita in northwestern Tanzania, donkeys are used to haul backbreaking weights in an archaic method of gold mining, causing terrible suffering to these gentle creatures. With our support, ASPA began conducting monthly visits to the area to provide the donkeys with deworming medication, medical care and proper saddlebags so they cannot be overloaded.