As you know, our small Naturewatch Foundation team becomes very busy around World Animal Day every year as we coordinate a global day for animals. This year was no different, and we’d love to share with you some of the events we saw take place this year.
But before we get into sharing some of the wonderful events we saw take place for World Animal Day this year, we want to say thank you.
Thank you for supporting Naturewatch Foundation! Without you, we could not run the World Animal Day initiatives that we do. Your support of our work allows us to continue to work towards our mission of advancing animal welfare around the world.
Without further ado, here is a short summary of some of the events uploaded to the website this year:
Fundraisers
- In the Bahamas, nine-year-old Isabelle G, raised money for The Bahamas Humane Society by selling animal-themed pin badges.
- In Pakistan, a ‘paws and claws’ fundraiser was held by Crescent Model Higher Secondary School to raise money for a nearby animal shelter.
- Here in the UK, our patron Dan Richardson raised money by doing the Dorney triathlon for the work being done at Naturewatch Foundation.
Children’s events
- The Greenfingers Wildlife Initiative, in Nigeria, held a day of celebration for children from different schools which included writing conservation stories, an animal painting class, an animal craft making session and a movie screening.
- In the UK, the Pet Education Partnership held two online events for teachers and educators with an expected turnout of over 5,000 7-11 year-old students benefitting.
- In Malawi, the Lilongwe Society for the Protection and Care of Animals held an Animal Kindness Club where children were taught about the importance of animal welfare, compassion, and responsible care, as taught in the clubs while encouraging young learners to take active roles as advocates for animals within their communities.
- Two of the Pawtectors’ junior ‘animal ambassadors’, from Virginia in the US, created a selfie sign challenge to encourage other young animal lovers to share how much they care about animals.
Veterinary care
- SpayPanama held a huge neutering event across the World Animal Day weekend, from the 4th – 6th October, with the aim of neutering a whopping 1000 animals!
- In Kabul, Afghanistan, Nowzad used their new mobile veterinary clinic to travel into rural communities and provide them with education on how to better care for their working donkeys and horses.
- Pet blessing ceremonies
- A short service including music, readings and prayer, and the individual blessing of each animal and their human companion, took place St Boltolph-without-Bishopsgate in London, UK.
- In Orlando, another pet blessing ceremony took place at Village on the Green to show gratitude to the animals within the local communities.
Conservation and wildlife
- In Manipur, India, People for Animals relocated rescued wildlife (12 snakes and 1 monitor lizard) to the Langol Reserve Forest, and trained new members on the handling and identification of wildlife in distress.
- Born Free Kenya held a collaborative tree-planting and litter clean up event with organisations such as Kenya Wildlife Service and the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust.
- And these were just a few! There are so many more we could have shared with you and so it was a challenge to only select a handful.
Naturewatch Foundation
We also wanted to give back even more for World Animal Day this year and so we were a little busier than usual…
This year:
- We ran a donate-a-dinner initiative, where we provided our local animal rescue, Cheltenham Animal Shelter, with enough food to feed all of their current 72 shelter animals.
- Max Wilkinson MP, who represents the Cheltenham constituency visited our office to speak with the charity about World Animal Day.
- We travelled to the Senedd in Wales to celebrate World Animal Day even further with other animal welfare organisations.
- We know that World Animal Day has a great impact on animals, and it always has the potential to grow! If you couldn’t be involved this year, we hope you might be able to join us in 2025.
