The Animal Welfare Society of SA revisited the Jim se Bos informal settlement in Philippi on June 24 to continue their search for more injured and displaced animals.

Amongst all the chaos, many residents were trying their utmost best to rebuild their homes from anything and everything that they could salvage. The Animal Welfare said that almost every person they had spoken to lost something.

Many had lost their beloved pets who perished in the blaze. Freshly dug graves could be seen and was a reminder of how many lives were lost and how brutal the fire was.

Some residents who lost their fur babies could still be seen grieving. Even though the community suffered a great loss, a spark of positivity remained. The Animal Welfare noticed many cats and dogs wandering around in search of what was once their homes.

Pet owners could be seen making an effort to rebuild structures from ash just to keep their pets safe and warm.

The Animal Welfare Society returned yesterday afternoon to collect the first load of pets for any treatment and sterilisation to prevent uncontrolled breeding, unwanted litters, negligence and cruelty due to those who simply cannot afford it or are naive.

Two volunteers, Jenna Repasky from the USA and Laura Bruckner from Austria joined the Animal Welfare team. They asked the two lovely ladies about their impression of the critical outreach and this was their response:

“I spent a lot of my childhood years in South Africa so I always saw informal settlements from the outside but I was still entirely shocked to go in and experience the settlement from the inside. I am utterly speechless”.

“Makes my own problems seem so small. No words”.

Coming to the aid of the pets that cohabit this destitute community presents the Animal Welfare Society of SA with an opportunity to remedy a long list of animal welfare concerns that have been unchecked for far too long. With the help of the public, they can definitely make a positive impact.

“We will try our best to convince those unable to afford to keep a pet to surrender them to us before it becomes necessary to confiscate them and will strive to sterilise every other animal”, says the Animal Welfare Society.

“How successful we will be is contingent on how much funding we can raise. It will cost R450 to sterilise, vaccinate, dip and deworm a pet and we have the infrastructure to sterilise the entire communities pets within one breeding cycle of 6 months,” they added.

To sponsor the cost of a sterilisation please send them your gift via PayFast. To do so, kindly click here.

Deposit your donation directly into their Nedbank Current Account :

  • Account Number: 114 822 258 8
  • Branch Code: 19 87 65
  • Kindly reference your donation: Jim

“In the meantime, we are delighted to report that Tracey who we found burnt and barely alive under an old mattress yesterday is responding well to treatment and even managed a croaky purr this morning!”

Picture/s: Supplied

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