PAWS2RESCUE
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Mission Statement
Paws2Rescue is a UK registered charity for the benefit of the public to relieve the suffering of animals in need of care and attention and to provide homes or other facilities for the reception, care and treatment of such animals and to educate the public in matters pertaining to animal welfare in general and the prevention of cruelty and suffering in particular but not exclusively to dogs in Romania. Our vision is to reduce the stray dog population, improve animal welfare in the community and a change of culture towards empathy for animals, working in the UK and Romania to help the animals in such desperate need of help, the animals that no-one else cares about - we call them "nobody's dogs". The dogs are beaten, spend their lives outside in the cold on the end of a short chain, they are abused, burnt, axed, hung or stoned. With no animal welfare laws to protect them, with everyone driving past, ignoring their plight, we are the only ones who care. Our team in the UK and Romania work to our values: Compassion, Empathy, Integrity, Hope, Safety, Transparency, Equality. We are a charity solely run by volunteers, and we carry out our mission with our principles in our hearts: Animals first, Caring, Responsibility, Respect, High Standards, Doing More. We will keep on speaking out, because the animals cannot, and we will continue to be the voice for the voiceless, with our passion and drive, as we literally save lives every single day.
About This Cause
Founded in 2013, Paws2Rescue is a UK Registered charity (1156882) that works to relieve the suffering of dogs across the world, with a focus on Romania and Ukraine. Our work focuses on our Education and Neuter programmes in rural communities, and helping individual animals anywhere in the world in desperate need of help. Paws2Rescue also work South Korea, Peru and China – and wherever we are needed. We also help some of these dogs to find loving family homes in the UK and across Europe. We specifically work in the following areas in rural Romania: • Helping individual dogs in danger – such as a seriously abused or injured dog • Helping our team and rescuers in Romania – with the dogs in our care, food, vet treatments and straw. Our rescuers have up to 3,000 dogs in their care at any one time • Neuter campaigns – every year, we have increased our focus in this area, and carry out several campaigns each year, neutering literally thousands of dogs each year, and a total of over 16,000 dogs and cats now (as at June 2023). In 2021 we set up our first vet clinic in Ortisoara, we bought a second in Moldova Noua (which needs building work) and a mobile neuter clinic to reach extreme rural areas. In 2023, we set up a new vet clinic in Beius, Romania. Along with our mobile neuter clinic, we are working deep into rural communities. • Education – our education programme has been in schools across many of the 42 counties in Romania. In response to the global pandemic, our education programme has moved online and has been used by hundreds of schools and clubs. • Local Government projects – we work in the communities alongside the Mayor and police on specific projects to help the animals. An example of this is door to door visits to encourage neuter and microchip which is a legal requirement. • Projects – each year we prepare our project work: these will include for example providing roof and shade over a shelter, bringing running water to help the dogs, neuter cabins. In 2022 we need to renovate areas of the vet clinic which we bought in 2021. In 2021 we started building a Sanctuary which will be home to 200 dogs, building brick by brick as and when donations come in, and this was finally opened in August 2024 - but we still need to build a vet clinic on site. In 2023, our very first community medical centre opened too, helping us to work further into the rural communities in south Romania and build on our education programme with this huge facility. We specifically work in the following areas in the UK: • Dog adoptions – some of the dogs and pups rescued are lucky enough to find families in the UK • Raising Awareness – however we can, every day, we strive to raise awareness to the abuse of dogs in Romania. Our television series on national Together TV was a huge step forwards in 2019. We continue speaking out locally and across social media to gain support for the neglect and abuse of animals. • Raising donations – of course, we cannot do our work in Romania and across the world without your support • Lobbying/ legal – we do stand out and speak at the EU and at local government level. After Brexit, we continued this work in the EU via our team in Romania. . We are involved in national level discussion and in the House of Lords on the disease of brucellosis and we are carrying out our own formal research programme in Romania on this too. Our key work is planning for the future to help all animals, and to set up permanent and lasting footprints in Romania to help the dogs. An example of this is renting our first premises in 2020 and converting this into a neuter clinic, which is having huge success in reducing the stray population in hundreds of rural villages. In 2021, we have purchased a large vet clinic in rural Romania, which will be used for the same purpose, but with the added benefits of UK vet nurses being able to travel overseas to assist in our work too, once we have renovated the outbuildings, again we hope with the help from builders in the UK. At present in Romania, there is no law enforcement, no protection for the stray dog population. The national government policy of capture and kill is not working. The solutions are to make changes within the culture of the country – and this is to start helping the future generations, by education, and the current generation, by neutering and raising awareness of basic animal care and the benefits of neutering. The reality of post-Communist Romania is that there is a long road ahead. Values need to change, but the current values are deeply rooted in the culture, going deeper and further than Communism. To truly generate change, we need to move forward from the government’s lack of care and laws for stray dogs, we need to continue to plan and integrate our legacy, our footprint in Romania, moving forwards to change perceptions, to improve trust within the country, to help locals take on responsibility and involvement. We need to continue to nurture the future generation, inspiring them to care for animals, and to take on the responsibility for animal care within the country. Why we do it: "Just one of literally thousands of dogs that our team and rescuers in Romania have saved. A fairly typical start to any day… Nine o’clock in the morning and already -20C outside, painfully cold, as we drove to the public shelter where there are 800 dogs, all taken from the streets, many people’s pets, and all on death row. As we drove along the streets, our hearts dropped as we saw the dogs curled up in balls, inside holes that they had to dig in the snow – just to stay alive. Then we saw her, slowly walking along, silent in her pain, too cold to care to run away when we approached. Picking her up, her frozen paws made us cry, she was heavier than she looked, weighed down by years of matted fur like rocks around her body. This is an everyday reality in Romania, where there remains a huge stray dog population due to lack of neutering, where dogs are taken cruelly by dogcatchers to “shelters” where they are killed after 14 days. Yet Ivy, and thousands like her are safe – because we have rescued them. Thousands, almost millions of pups are not born unwanted, because we carry out neutering. Because we care. Our love for dogs does not stop at the border, and we cannot stand to see any dog in distress." We have been working in Romania since 2013. A country where corruption, scandal and money making from the dogs is rife, where there are so many political influences on dogs: the owning of dogs, keeping them on chains, capture and kill, public (state run) shelters and private shelters, the lack of protection at law for animals, it is essential to not only simple neuter, or rescue a dog, but to learn about the country itself and how it operates. It has been a key factor in our successful work, and out team have been in Romania almost every month for years, up to the start of covid-19 in 2020. We currently work in 19 out of 42 counties in Romania, and have rescuer or contacts in at least 30 counties. Paws2Rescue is a well known name in Romania and respected as a serious organisation for helping the dogs and other animals, we have achieved this with our continued work across the communities, with our involvement at local and government levels and being involved in closing shelters, and running events, that has led to us being on Romanian national TV stations on a number of occasions over the past years. Our relationships with local mayors, local charities with whom we partner and rescuers has brought their support to our campaigns and events across the country. In August, every year, we launch our Christmas shoebox appeal for orphans, disadvantaged children and very low income families in Romania, children in the hospital cancer units and the poor boxes at churches. We arrange collection points across the country, and our articulated lorry comes to our storage unit Big Yellow Self Storage in Sutton, Surrey at the start of December, where a team of volunteers load 40 tons of donations. We fly out from the UK to Romania to help our team distribute donations. In February, we launch our Easter appeal for shoes and Easter eggs. Twice a year, we help the communities in Romania this way – it really is vital to our work. Each year, Paws2Rescue support an international project or partnership too. We have been to Peru and carried out neutering programmes in shanty towns, we have rescued dogs from the dog meat trade in South Korea and we have helped rescue and re roof a shelter in the Philippines. We are all volunteers. There are no paid employees, and 100% of donations will go to help the animals in Romania and across the world. We are a passionate team of animal lovers from all walks of life, from across the UK and Romania. Each of us has a unique quality and supporting each other, we work towards one goal - the animals. Paws2Rescue treat all volunteers with respect and as a valued team member and in turn we have a mutual respect, responsibility and commitment. We are firmly committed to supporting each volunteer and we have policies including Equality and Diversity, Code of Conduct and Safeguarding that we actively promote within our team. We comply with the Charity Commission regulations, and Health & Safety at Work legal regulations, and our policies are available on request. We are proud to be supported by our patrons Ricky Gervais, Samantha Womack, Marc Abrahams and Wendy Turner-Webster. We are entirely funded by goodwill and donations and every pound, euro or dollar is so truly appreciated and so well spent. With over 3,000 animals in our care in Romania and our team and partner charities over there too, we literally save lives every single day of the year. Thank you for supporting our valuable work. When everyone else drives past, we will never walk away from any animal in need of help.