Home Features Tails of Hope, Rosewood Foundation collaborating to provide a voice for the...
By Lakhram Bhagirat
The five freedoms of animal welfare stipulate that an animal should be free from hunger and thirst; free from pain and discomfort; free from pain, injury or disease; have the ability to freely express normal behaviour, and be free from fear and distress.
Those are the five freedoms that every animal lover and pet parent should know and live by. It is also the core principles that guide the advocacy of Shari Rodrigues DaSilva and her team at Animal Rescue Adoption and Protection Society (ARAPS) – Tails of Hope non-profit organisation.
ARAPS – Tails of Hope was started in November of 2019 by DaSilva, who has spent much of her life advocating for proper care and treatment of animals. In its short time in existence, the organisation has been able to make significant headway in educating people about the proper treatment of animals as well as addressing the needs of animals.
However, the journey is not one of a single organisation, rather ARAPS – Tails of Hope has been actively collaborating with the Guyana Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animal (GSPCA) and the Rosewood Foundation among others.
Guyana Times was able to catch up with DaSilva and Donna Lam of the Rosewood Foundation a few weeks ago while they were out on a vaccination campaign in Eccles, East Bank Demerara.
“In November … we celebrated our one-year anniversary and we have been able to make a huge impact. We have been able to collaborate with organisations such as the Rosewood Foundation, the GSPCA and other activists. We collaborate to minimise, control certain diseases or outbreaks such as parvovirus, distemper virus, which is prevalent on the East Coast (Demerara) areas and West Coast (Demerara),” DaSilva said.
In addition to that, ARAPS has been actively involved in controlling the stray animal population by spaying, neutering and rehoming animals that were abandoned.
While she has only been formally advocating for proper treatment of animals for a few years, DaSilva has been an animal lover all her life. Her parents and siblings are all animal lovers and she would capitalise on that when it comes to raising funds for her work.
About three years ago, when Lam launched the Rosewood Foundation, DaSilva joined with her where they worked, and she recounted that the work of Lam and other activists such as Syeada Manbodh, Noreen Gaskin, and veterinarians like Dr Steve Surujbally and Dr Nardeo Bassoodeo have inspired her to do more.
From there, she founded ARAPS – Tails of Hope and now she is able to spay and neuter thousands of animals while providing shelter for hundreds.
“The major accomplishments have been so far, our organisation alone – ARAPS – Tails of Hope, we have been able to spay and neuter over 700 animals in just a year. We have three shelters and we’ve been able to rehome over 200 animals so far in just a year. It wasn’t a single-man team; we’ve been able to do this thanks to other organisations,” she related.
ARAPS would respond to reports and go on rescue missions and if those are too much for them to handle, then the GSPCA is called in or other activists. The assistance is not just for cats and dogs, but all animals. DaSilva explained that just recently they were able to rescue a goat.
“I enjoy rehoming animals and seeing pet parents happy. If they’re not happy and if they haven’t had the right match with certain animal, we work with them, we exchange the animal and we keep in communication and they literally become part of our family. So, we gain new friends all the time,” she said.
With DaSilva’s kind of work, the challenges are many and would range from hostile pet parents to the lack of financial resources. Pets are expensive and many persons are not ready to stand the financial obligation and would abandon their animals or leave them to suffer. These situations make the work of ARAPS all so important.
DaSilva would spend hours driving around to answer reports or pick up abandoned animals without being paid a cent. Why does she do it then? Well, it is the love for animals that fuels her passion.
“I have experienced many challenges in getting donations, because you know COVID and everything…whenever we need donations, we will go on Facebook and make our plea and whatever persons can donate, they will. Sometimes, many times, it’s out of pocket and friends and family, I will show up at them. It’s a challenge at times,” she said.
Meanwhile, Lam of the Rosewood Foundation said one of their biggest challenges is getting equipment from donors into the country. She explained that their work is sometimes affected because of the hefty sums that have to be paid when they are bringing equipment in.
“The Rosewood Foundation deals with spaying and neutering animals, but you cannot control the pet population unless you educate the owners of these pets. People might want to adopt one or more animals and we cannot stop them, but we have to educate them that when these animals are old enough, they need to bring these animals back to us. So, we make it our duty to call these people to get these animals back to us to get them spayed and neutered.
“We have to constantly remind people that vaccination is important. We are trying to curb a distemper outbreak right now and it breaks our heart almost daily to see animals having to be put down, because distemper is like 98 per cent fatal and it is something that we have to do and I don’t think people understand that we are not being paid to do this. We are doing this, because this is our love, this is our obsession, this is our passion. We want to see better in Guyana,” the activist said.
Lam started the Rosewood Foundation about three years ago, but has been rescuing animals for many years now. While growing up in Suriname, she would often hide kittens in her backpacks and under her clothes while returning from school and would guilt-trip her parents into letting her keep them.
When she returned to Guyana, she saw the need for an organisation to aid in the protection of animals, but had very little knowledge of how to go about starting one. She would eventually meet Ileana Bernard – an Ecuadorian working at an animal shelter – who guided her through the process.
“When I started the Rosewood Foundation, three years ago, everybody told me that it couldn’t be done. People don’t love animals, they won’t support me, they won’t care and now from the Rosewood Foundation, we have ARAPS – our sister organisation that we work very closely with.
“We get help from the GSPCA and we get help from Humane Society International and together we have been able to not only spay and neuter in huge campaigns, but to have vaccination drives in various parts of the country which is unheard of and we started a trend and now we have people constantly messaging us. So, these things are catching on and it shows us that people love their animals, they want to do better, but maybe they don’t know how. So, our first mission is to educate the public and as long as you can educate people and teach them what is the right thing to do towards their animals, they would do it,” Lam said.
The work of ARAPS and the Rosewood Foundation along with the many activists and other animal welfare organisations is needed not only to keep checks and balances but to also give a voice to the voiceless.
“All animals have feelings, they feel pain. Just take care of your animals. If you can’t afford a pet, don’t take on a pet. Never ever, ever give a pet as a gift, because people adopt kittens and puppies, but they don’t want them when they get older and then they put the animal out on the road. You need to be able to take care and guarantee them the five freedoms of animal welfare,” Lam advised.
