EFA's July Charity: Help Animals India!

I'm happy to announce that Help Animals India has been chosen as EFA's July 2010 charity of the month!

Help Animals India was founded by Eileen Weintraub in 2008 to make it easier for people around the world to support the Visakha Society for Protection and Care of Animals (VSPCA) in Visakhapatnam, India. Although the VSPCA is still the principal beneficiary, Eileen expanded Help Animals India in 2010 to help provide support to other Indian animal protection groups that she'd visited (see list here.)

Help Animals India is an all-volunteer organization - none of the volunteers receive a salary and all pay for their own travel expenses. All contributions go directly to help animals.

At the VSPCA Cow Sanctuary (photo by Abigail Cromwell)

I first learned about VSPCA and Help Animals India from Susmitha of artbysusmitha, who donates part of the proceeds from her shop to the VSPCA Cow Sanctuary. After signing up for the VSPCA newsletter (highly recommended!), I got to know Eileen, who also serves as VSPCA's Volunteer Representative for Global Outreach.

Like many of us, I regularly donate to animal charity, but cannot afford to make large contributions. I was very happy to find out how far my small donations could go to help animals in India. As Eileen says, "Typical monthly salaries are the equivalent of $500 USD for a veterinarian and $100 USD for shelter or office help. Dog and cat spay/neuter operations average just $12 USD."

VSPCA is a sanctuary for cows, dogs, cats, turtles, horses, buffalo, many kinds of birds and other small animals and also has programs for span/neuter, animal protection, and disaster relief both in the city of Visahapatnam and surrounding areas of Andhra Pradesh. It's difficult to describe everything that VSPCA does to help animals in one blog post, so I urge you to check out their website, or follow the links in the photos below. Abigail Cromwell from the U.S. recently volunteered at VSPCA and kindly allowed me to use some of the wonderful photos from her "Bussy Go" blog to illustrate this post.

(photo by Abigail Cromwell)

The photo above is Maria, a special needs puppy dog rescued by VSPCA. Read more about Maria and other animals rescued by VSPCA in the VSPCA June newsletter or on Abigail's blog here.

(photo by Abigail Cromwell)

This is a photo of Sarada, the VSPCA small animal shelter manager, playing with rescued cats at the VSPCA Cat Shelter. The cats also have fenced outdoor living areas. You can learn more about the Cat Shelter on Abigail's blog here, and about the shelter and VSPCA's other programs for cats on the VSPCA website here.

(photo by Abigail Cromwell)

Here are some happy rescued dogs at the VSPCA shelter. See more photos on Abigail's blog here and read about VSPCA's programs for dogs here.

Eileen at the Help Animals India/VSPCA booth at the Seattle Green Fair.

If you'd like to get involved with Help Animals India or VSPCA, here are some things you can do:

1. Consider contributing either directly or through your Etsy shop to Help Animals India or to VSPCA. No donation is too small! And if you do plan to contribute through your shop, please leave a note in the comments.
   
2. Sign up for the VSPCA newsletter on the VSPCA home page.
3. Check out Help Animals India/VSPCA on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/VSPCA - you do not have to be a Facebook member to view updates)
4. If you are in the Washington DC area, Help Animals India will be at two animal welfare conferences in the Washington DC this July: Animal Rights 2010 (Eileen will be speaking about India's animals here) and Taking Action for Animals.
5. Learn how you can sponsor a cat, dog, duck, cow, monkey or other animal at VSPCA for $20 USD here.
   

Thanks very much to all EFA members for everything they do to help animals!
Katie (Mishkat)

The VSPCA shelter needs our help!

(photos by Eileen Weintraub)

The Visakha Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (VSPCA) could use your help! The VSPCA's shelter in Andhra Pradesh, India, was severely damaged in the recent typhoon, Cyclone Laila, and assistance is needed for both repairs and disaster relief to help animals in the surrounding area.

Here is a portion of an e-mail we received from Eileen Weintraub, the founder of Help Animals India, an umbrella organization whose primary beneficiary is the VSPCA:

"Cyclone Laila has struck the coast of Andhra Pradesh, and has continued up the Indian coast through Orissa. The VSPCA shelter which is home to around 1,100 animals has sustained a lot of damage.

Pradeep Nath, founder and president of VSPCA, writes: 'Trees have fallen on the roof of the ABC/TNR [Animal Birth Control/Trap Neuter Release] center; this needs immediate repair so we can continue our ABC (spay/neuter) program. The bigger generator and even the small generator are not working and are clogged with water. Three of the pigeon shelters have been damaged. All the bird areas need to be fixed to better withstand storms. The goshala shed where the buffaloes live, needs the sheets on top replaced, the goshala shed on the other side, for the cows, has been swept away by the winds, and another one needs to be put up for them. The drainage system needs to be improved to prevent flooding.

Our first obligation is to the 1,100 rescued animals we have here; they all need to have shelter and be in out of the rain - and to the continuation of our ABC (spay/neuter) program. We conduct more than 40 surgeries a day to help the street animals, and we need to continue this program.

Animals in the areas around us also need urgent help because of the severe storm and the flooding, and we hope that we will have the funding to do disaster relief, as we have always done in the past, since these animals too are dependent on us. We are thankful that there have been no deaths, and all the animals here at the shelter have survived. Our heart-felt thanks to all of you who can provide any help for the animals.' "

If you'd like to help, here are three ways:

1. Consider nominating Help Animals India as Romeo the Cat's FURPOWER recipient for June (If you have not heard about Romeo yet, you can read more about FURPOWER here. He and his amazing staffperson, Caroline Golon, have raised so much money for animal charity.)

You can nominate at http://www.romeothecat.com/contact/ - it is easy! All you need is a valid e-mail address! Please note that you must nominate Help Animals India (website address: http://helpanimalsindia.org/) instead of the VSPCA since Romeo's rules require that the charity be a U.S. 501(c)3 organization. Caroline will be choosing a recipient later this week so please nominate ASAP.

2. If you are eligible, please consider nominating either the VSPCA or Help Animals India for the EFA Charity of the Month for July.

3. And if you can, please consider making a small donation, since our money goes a long way in India! As Eileen says:
"Donations go directly to benefit India’s animals. In India, these funds continue to go a long way. Typical monthly salaries are the equivalent of $500 USD for a veterinarian and $100 USD for shelter or office help. Dog and cat spay/neuter operations average just $12 USD."

You can find out more about how to donate at http://vspca.org/donate.php. If you donate via PayPal, the donation goes through Help Animals India and is 100% US tax deductible. You can also donate by mail or wire transfer.

Many thanks!