Southern Africa

Calvinia, South Africa

In the impoverished farming town of Calvinia in South Africa, hundreds of dogs and cats are suffering the effects of a devastating, years-long drought. The drought has destroyed this Northern Cape farming community, leaving both people and animals starving.

We work with partners on the ground to sterilize the animals of Calvinia’s Blikkiesdorp township while providing critically needed veterinary care, treatment and food to the hundreds of dogs and cats who call the area home. Since our work began there in 2021, we have helped bring hundreds of animals back from the brink of death, conducted several mass sterilization drives, and delivered literal tons of pet food. We continue to work closely with the community to help keep their animals healthy and fed.

Most recently, in May 2024, we rushed emergency funds to continue feeding the area’s 200 dogs, and to provide crucial veterinary care for those facing life-threatening injuries.

Cat Trapping and Sterilization Network (CTSN)

In Cape Town, South Africa, we support the work of CTSN which cares for feral cats in industrial areas.

TEARS (The Emma Animal Rescue Society)

Network for Animals supports the TEARS (The Emma Animal Rescue Society) Cattery in Cape Town, South Africa, which cares for some 150 cats at its shelter, by providing funding for much-needed food, vital search and rescue missions and veterinary care. All the cats in TEARS’ care have been previously abandoned, abused or neglected, often rescued from the city’s poverty-stricken township areas.

The TEARS dog shelter is well run and provides excellent veterinary care. Of particular importance are its outreach programs in impoverished communities, where teams rescue and rehome street dogs and provide care for pets whose owners cannot afford sterilizations and medical treatment. Our supporters have allowed us to help animals at TEARS for nearly a decade by providing funding for much-needed food, vital search and rescue missions, equipment and veterinary care. Most recently, we have helped them buy a new outreach vehicle tough enough to withstand the poor roads in township areas.

Fallen Angels

Fallen Angels Pet Rescue works in South Africa's Western Cape, mostly in deeply impoverished urban areas. The organization focuses on the rescue, rehabilitation and rehoming of domestic animals that are forgotten, abandoned (abused, lost, lonely, emaciated, and neglected (fallen)). Network for Animals has supported Fallen Angels for the past seven years by providing food, funding sterilization drives and assisting with emergency dog and cat rescues and rehabilitation. We also recently raised funds for a crucial vaccination campaign amidst a horrific distemper outbreak, helping to save the lives of 1,000 dogs.

Fur-Get-Me-Knot

Dogs are often condemned to lives of misery in the Westlake township, located in the South African city of Cape Town. Animals there are often subjected to neglect, starvation, abuse, dogfighting and over-breeding. We support Fur-Get-Me-Knot, a small group of volunteers who help animals in the area. Together, we help provide food, medical care, vital vaccinations and sterilization. We also educate owners on how to properly care for their animals.

KZN Valley Dogs

In the Valley of a Thousand Hills in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, more than 1,000 dogs are victims of extreme poverty, ignorance, uncontrolled breeding and utter neglect. Many of these dogs are so emaciated that their ribs are visible through their scarred, parasite-riddled skin.

Our partner teams venture into the region every Sunday, rain or shine, to feed and care for as many dogs as possible.

In some places in the Thousand Hills, unemployment is more than 50%, and the animals live off what they can scavenge, which is very little. To add to their misery, many of the dogs experience terrible abuse or suffer from dangerous infections and diseases, intestinal parasites or horrific dog-fighting injuries, including broken bones and painful lacerations.

Here, illegal organizations known as "taxi hunts" exploit dogs. This barbaric sport sees groups of up to 30 men and packs of more than 100 starved and frightened street dogs set out to kill. Dogs in these hunts are deliberately starved and are then sent to hunt small animals. Dogs are rated and bets are placed, and those that don’t “make money” are killed, often in gruesome ways. Even more are abandoned with broken bones and festering wounds.

We support KZN Valley Dogs by financing rescue missions, critically needed food and emergency veterinary intervention for countless battered and bruised dogs.

Zimbabwe

In Zimbabwe, we support Harare’s Friend Animal Foundation (FAF). Following the death of its previous owner, FAF was on the brink of financial ruin and closure. Hundreds of animals were at risk of being euthanized by the authorities. With the help of our generous supporters, Network for Animals kept the doors of FAF open, initially delivering 4,134 pounds of food to the dogs and providing staff to help care for the animals. We continue to assist FAF with much-needed renovations and improvements for all the animals in its care. Alongside almost 500 canine residents, the no-kill shelter is a sanctuary for 145 cats, horses, goats and a donkey.

The MARES Community Cat sanctuary (MCC) was established in 2023 by the founder of our long-term partner, the Matabeleland Animal Rescue & Equine Center (MARES) in Bulawayo. MCC is the only animal shelter in Bulawayo helping kittens and cats, as the local domestic animal shelter usually euthanizes them as soon as they are brought in. Our support has helped cover life-saving veterinary care, treatment and rehabilitation for a number of their cats, including Sheba, a street cat found with such terrible injuries that her back legs were paralyzed. She has since made a full recovery. MCC also runs regular trap-neuter-release programs to help curb the birth of unwanted kittens, and cares for kittens and cats until they find loving homes.