Spay and Neuter Cats and Dogs in Rural Eswatini

Hello again,

We had hoped to be bearers of good news in this year of 2021, but sadly the Covid-19 Pandemic continues with renewed strength, making it very difficult to predict when it will be safe for us to venture out to organize our Spay/Neuter Clinics.

On the 7th January our National Borders were closed once again, schools won’t open until February at the earliest, and our lockdown rules have been strengthened. All ‘gatherings’ have been limited to a maximum of twenty people with a strict time limit of two hours.

But all is not doom and gloom, your donations together with various local donations have covered the estimated cost of our next three Spay/Neuter Clinics. The ground work has been done for one clinic and the other two clinics are in the pipeline and we are raring to go.

Hopefully Eswatini will receive human vaccines soon and things will change for the better. Fortunately, our dedicated team carry on working in our two Shelters albeit under very difficult conditions.  Spaying and Neutering all the pets we are able to re-home and treating those who come to us needing care.

We hope this message finds you well.  It's been a while since we last updated you on our Spay Clinic schedule for this year, so we wanted to fill you in on the latest.  Due to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we have had to postpone our 2020 Clinics to 2021. We are waiting for our Government to lift the restrictions of the rules of assembly, hopefully in the next few days. The Waterford Kamhlaba United World College (UWC) students are only expected back on campus in late January 2021, and they make up a large portion of the volunteers that assist us with our Clinics.
We have penciled in three dates and hope (and pray) we will be able to fulfil our promise and complete them successfully.
The donation you have so generously made have been placed in an interest-bearing account waiting for our go-ahead (we can’t even begin to buy drugs as they may go out of date).
In the meantime, we have been granted official permission for one of the Clinics and the awareness programme is underway in the community, at dip tanks, schools and community meetings.
For the other two, we are still establishing which premises will be suitable for a Clinic and whether there is catering/overnight accommodation available for our team, as these venues are in rural areas. If not – we will pitch our tents and build a fire to cook over.
Fortunately, during this crisis, we have still been able to continue with our normal welfare work in both Mbabane and Manzini, spaying and neutering and providing general care. The number of pets handed over has increased and our kennels are full but luckily, we have still been able to find good homes for many of them.