Tanzania Animal Welfare Society - Tanzania
Tanzania Animal Welfare Society (TAWESO) is a non- profit, non-governmental organization registered in Tanzania (00NGO/0492) with a major aim of promoting animal welfare in Tanzania. We are a group of people (veterinarians, teachers, members of community, agricultural workers) working currently mainly on volunteer basis. The Government does not provide funding to civil societies. TAWESO is grass root community organization registered on 18th of April, 2008.
In Tanzania, animal welfare is not a priority to many people as they are faced with many other life challenges like street children, extreme poverty and hunger and therefore our society is working hard on the following issues in order to alleviate the situation: -Community humane education and education in primary schools thus creating increase in pet ownership responsibility and love of animals. We develop humane education leaflets for the community and school children. -Delivery of animal health care to stray animals and other neglected and abandoned animals e.g provision of veterinary treatments on various diseases, and wounds, washing and dipping animals against mange, fleas and ticks, vaccination against rabies disease and deworming. -Dog and cat population control through spay and neuter programs in order to reduce number of stray animals. Stray animals are always attacked and beaten by street children in town centres since they compete for food and also they pose a serious threat to human because they can transmit some serious disease like rabies and hydatidosis, and some people poison them secretly and the animals are found dead without pre-monitory signs, other dogs/cats are drowned, hanged, and abandoned in forests to die at their own, others are eaten in some interior parts of the country.. -Policy and advocacy, our organization has been involved in discussion with the government towards reaching to a formulation of a bill which aimed at protecting the animals of Tanzania. We are very happy that the bill is now passed by the Parliament of Tanzania, and is cited as Animal Welfare Act, 2008. We consider this to be a great achievement, apart from advocating animal welfare issues freely in our country; animal welfare violators will be sent court, however we find our organisation has a lot do on publicity of this new legislation so that people are aware. -Knowledge advancement in Animal Welfare; Our organisation seeks more knowledge on animal welfare issues e.g. we have currently received education materials from World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) and one of our members attended Animal Care Expo 2009 in Las Vegas, United States of America through Humane Society International Scholarship. TAWESO was invited by ANAW and InterNiche in Nairobi in September, 2009 to attend a seminar on use of animal alternatives in education systems and training. The knowledge we acquired we utilize in our activities. In all these activities the government does not support financially the non-profit organizations in the country so we have to rely on our subscriptions and some donations. THE SHELTER TAWESO runs a Shelter which is able to take 10 dogs and 2 cats at time. It is hosted by our Patron. The stray animals recovering from surgical sterilization procedures are kept for a while before are adopted or released to the street. The adoption here is very limited as many people are challenged by severe poverty and other life problems of hunger, lack of other human basic needs. So the welfare of stray animals is not a priority of many people. FUTURE PLANS We are currently establishing a Donkey welfare project in Dodoma some 500 Km from Dar es salaam. The area has a large population of donkeys and they are very overworked, neglected and use very crude harnesses (see the fig. below) causing very severe wounds on the neck. When the donkeys are terminally ill, they are left to die for themselves in forests. We plan to establish shelter for the abandoned donkeys at the same time providing donkey welfare education in these communities. http://www.taweso.blogspot.com/ |    Click on the photos to go to the photo album of the shelter.
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