News Updates

2005 Year-end report - January 5th, 2006

"The value that the VSPCA team places on every living creature is profound and most assuredly left an indelible impression on these villagers; I know it did on me"

- Michael Bannasch, RVT, Coordinator of the Shelter Medicine Program University Of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, wrote about his visits to the isolated tsunami affected villages.

VSPCA at year end

Beginning one year ago Christmas 2004 we have faced a year of extreme desperation and challenge accompanied with anguish and fear for the animals. But now we vow to show our fellow humans the dire need to respect nature with total dedication.

This year we lost some wonderful and intelligent friends who can never be replaced but we take great solace in adding to our family many hundreds more needy ones.

We do not know what is in store for us in 2006 but we dedicate ourselves for all the ongoing projects and feel this year will see us developing the best standards for all the new and improved protocols. 2006 will include comprehensive awareness and education campaigns besides developing our very much needed outreach campaigns.

Our challenges include dealing with another 20,000 dogs and hundreds of stray cattle as our city of Visakha has now become GREATER VISAKHA with an additional 32 panchayats (villages) added and one more major municipality and VSPCA has responsibility for all.

So aside from our increased responsibility with have the ever pressing natural calamities that have badly affected all of the livestock in the rural areas. Diseases such as "blue tongue" for which there is no remedy are another epidemic. This disease was eradicated previously but the toll of environmental disasters has brought the virus back.

2005 was a year that increased the abilities of VSPCA to look after the animals of the entire coastal region. It has been a year that has turned our hoped into realities. And a year dominated by natural calamities has resulted in our improved skills to cope with all of the related complications.

An unforgettable year as we reached out to many thousands of animals and giving them real hope for their survival which allowed us to take care of and save:

We now move ahead to meet all the challenges that are detrimental to the animals produced by human over indulgence.

We try to bring hope and shower rays of light to the desperate ones. And when we hang out with them successfully we cannot forget your advice, support and timely aid. This is ever present in our minds and hearts encouraging us to keep going and allowing us to keep going.

Along with our restoration works the year 2006 provides immense challenges but we are confident of overcoming them all. With your continued support which has besides reaching out and establishing ourselves over 600 kms.

In 2005 we have improved with:

• a support administrative staff
• night vet and night mobile dispensary
• five vets in service
• four mobile ambulances
• readiness to deal with natural calamities,
• expansion of ABC (animal birth control) in 20 villages
• upgraded process at all levels for the best medical attention
• diagnosis laboratory
• seven cattle sheds with best RCC (slab mixture made of concrete, stones, cements and sand) roofing that can accommodate more than 700 cattle
• the boundary wall with the best engineering construction.

ALL IN ALL A SHELTER OF GENUINE HOPE!

2006: A Bigger Challenge

We appeal for your continued faith in us and support allowing us to continue with more vigor to consolidate our efforts. By helping us to recover from our own shelter floods and extending and improving our outdoor clinics this will very importantly help us to continue to spread out to more areas and build our lasting relationship pledged during the tsunami to the flood affected areas.

In 2006 we need funds for:

• a bigger and better Puppy's Pound (our previous one was destroyed in the floods)
• storage rooms (destroyed in the floods)
• large animal dispensary
• entire drainage facilities to the whole Shelter
• Suitable facilities for the abandoned dogs - an Octagon type dwelling,
• In-house dispensary for small animals
• Separate extensive quarantine for dogs that will allow more room for the ABC operations.

Our motto has changed to: "Without losing heart or hope we continue to move rapidly forward since we have been faced with the huge disasters in 2005 - we will restore, expand, overcome challenges, improve and consolidate existing projects and prove to be even better than before for the animals in 2006."

Happy healthy and safe 2006 New Year to all!
NAMASKAR - which means "with great respect we honor all of you."

Words fail to express our gratitude to all the individual donors (**please scroll down for everyone's name) and we are ever grateful for your faith in our vital work this year. Phil and Trix Wollen, of The Winsome Constance Kindness Trust, Australia are our chief patrons whom we were honored to host for a visit this year. From the USA Ms. Margaret Gebhard has been our best angel and a special thank you to her friend Ms. Jane Courtney. Visiting vets include the life altering and pioneering contribution of Dr. Bosmat Gal and an astounding improvement in our protocols from Dr. Rick Bachman and Mike Bannasch, RVT. Their visits were sponsored by AVAR (Assoc. of Vets for Animal Rights), ARL (Animal Rescue League) of Boston, USA and UAN (United Animal Nations, USA) as well as vet equipment we couldn't have dreamt of before. Our operating expenses from Ahimsa of Boston, USA were heaven sent. AWBI (Animal Welfare Board of India) helped keep us going for our ABC programs.

Ms. Maneka Gandhi was helping us as soon as the flood disaster struck. During the tsunami and September/October cyclones/floods we received crucial and life saving support from WSPA-UK (World Society for the Protection of Animals) -who funded our outreach teams, HSI (Humane Society International) Asia for generous shelter reconstruction help (special thanks to Sherry Grant for her invaluable expertise); Best Friends, USA; Weber Foundation, Switzerland; RSPCA-UK (Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and Best Friends for ambulance donations; Ahimsa of Boston; Tierschutzbund, Switzerland; In Defense of Animals, USA; AVAR, Rati Shah (in honor of Bonny Shah). Shelter reconstruction after our flood disaster labor and vet help was sent by Blue Cross of Hyderabad, India and the Tsunami Memorial Trust (Sri Lanka).

Kim Bartlett and Merritt Clifton of Animal People News (a tiny organization that covers the whole world!) continue to be our special friends who we owe all to helping in numerous ways and they kindly accept U.S. tax deductible checks that can be sent to us through them. Web site development (please look for our redesign coming in early January) is being donated by Derek Hogue, Canada - with previous help from Laura Black, Mohan SriReddy and Syd Baumel, Canada. Special mention must be made to the advice and friendship from Pam Runquist of AVAR and Sharon St. Joan of Best Friends.

We had two disasters this past year so received all the above crucial help. In '06 we plan to expand all of the contacts we made through these calamities and really get in there and help the animals in these rural very difficult and heart breaking situations! We can't abandon the animals we have seen need so much help now but we need your help in order to continue. So please kindly don't forget about us because we have big plans to help the animals even more so.

On behalf of VSPCA members and volunteers (humans and animals), please contact us:

Pradeep Kumar Nath, Founder and President
VSPCA
26.15.200, Main Road
Visakhapatnam 530 001, Andhra Pradesh, India
Email: vspcadeep@yahoo.co.in

In loving memory of Mothi -- bird friend extraordinaire of Swathi (rescued from cruel conditions by Swathi Buddhiraju)

With infinite and heartfelt thanks for your tsunami and other donations in '05 - all from USA as far we know unless noted, and if we forgot your name due to the chaos of this past year please forgive us and let us know: Chandi Amaratunge; Robert and Sherri Andrews; Deborah Ann Ashman(UK); Karen Atkin (UK) ; Syd Baumel (Canada); Paul Bell (UK); Lynnette Bevan; Jean Bird (UK); Canadian Voice for Animals (Argentina Branch); Kimberlee Carr; Kat Chaplin; Chu Pik Wa (Hong Kong); Gillian Cieri ; Jim Clarke; Leanne Copping (Australia); Sara d'Arce; Richard Deyo/Lynda Betts; Laura Black; M. Brenner, Rhonda Cunningham; Heidi Dittrich (Germany); Janice Emich; Averil Elaziz (Germany); Diane Faulkner; Fay Foreman; Pamela Flanagan; Eileen Fletcher; Jean Foss; Marie Fowler (UK); Chi - Lam Fung (Australia); Esther Geisser (Switzerland); Katja Genschorek (Germany); Evelyn Giefer; Jayaraman Gopalan; Ray Guinan (UK); Karin Hakanson; Ruby Hashim (UK); Sherry and Harvey Heit; John Hughes (UK); Judy Hungerford; Regina Hyland; Paul G. Jackson, Glynis and Eileen Jennings (N.Zealand); David Johnson; Amy Kauffman; Shannon Kahle; Sylyia Kalla; Kumar Kakarlapudi; Srilalan Krishnamoorthy; Jacqueline Kurz; Judy Kozlowicki; Caroline P Lacroix; Varda Lobanov; Celine Low (Singapore); Alan R. Longmore; Hersha Malkani (Canada); Mandy of Positive Outcome (UK); Patty Mark (Australia); Rene Martin (Germany); Valerie McCrea (UK); Karen McCorry; Suzanne Megles; Francesca Rina Menozzi (Italy); Cheryl Moore (Australia); Surya Mudiya; Dennis Oliver; Leslie Ovens; Evelyn Oynebraaten; Sue of Sathya Sai Sanctuary for Nature (Scotland); Miss Parsons (UK); Suzanne Pinto (Canada); Stephanie Prince; Diana Ratnazar (India); Bosky Ravindranath; Suchismita Ray; Laura Royko; Prakash Santhanagopalan; Joellen Secondo; Nicole Schmidhofer (Australia); Alaina Schultz; Giuseppe Soncina (Italy); Mariam ShahRais; John and Sue Shaw (Australia); Angelika Jones-Singh (Germany); Jocelyn Slyvester/Claude Herail; Darcy Silver; Gina Sopwith (UK); Mohan SriReddy; Victoria Stack; Geraine Strong; Priya Subramaniam (Australia); Iris Tansman; Karen Taylor; Chan To (Singapore); Belinda Todarello (Australia); Carolyn Truesdell; Rajesh and Sita Vedula; Marguerite Vkiekander (Belgium); Barbara Vickers; Kristin Von Kreisler; Jose Waechter (Brazil); Eileen Weintraub/Mark Daniel Johnson; Lesley Wells (UK); Andrew Wells (UK); Carole Westman; Rhea Wilson; Victoria Windsor; Patricia E Wright; Monette Wynne; Yuet Ming Kan

A truly international thank you to all!