This is education in Mali. Eighty children in this classroom - no resources, perhaps only four or five textbooks to go round the whole class.
No wonder they love the SPANA education proramme - they each get a book to keep and take home with them.
(Part of our cunning plan - their brothers and sisters get to read it as well - maybe even their parents).
But everyone seems to think it's great, particularly the Ministry of Education. And of course the main point of it for us is that it introduces the truly revolutionary concept that animals are sentient creatures. We even made a film of it - in Bambara - bound to be a big hit next year in Cannes.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Education is the key
Thursday, 14 October 2010
China
This is a bactrian camel - two humped, and hairier than the one humped dromedary of Africa and the Middle East because Asian deserts are so bitterly cold for most of the year.
There are still a very few wild ones around the edge of the Gobi dessert.
These are the camels that carried the trade along the Silk Road for thousands of years. Marco Polo used them.
As they headed west they met up with the one-humped variety in Jordan and Syria where they were often cross-bred. And yes, you've guessed it - the results did have one-and-a-half humps!
They're so tough they rarely need help -but do treat a few for worms or ticks, helping these fantastic animals to stay healthy.
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Endangered wildlife of Zimbabwe
Keith and Lisa founded ‘The Aware Trust’ to help the endangered wildlife of Zimbabwe – rendered even more threatened by the political crises of the last few years and the poverty and unemployment that ensued.
Rhino horn used to be poached for dagger handles in Yemen, but now it’s taken for Chinese medicine – and worth fifteen thousand US dollars a kilo in-country. That’s a hell of a temptation for hungry men.
There are stories of angry poachers killing dehorned rhinos out of spite or to avoid wasting a night tracking a worthless beast – but the current feeling is that if a whole population in an area is dehorned, the poachers will leave them alone and search further afield,
Here in the Matopos Hills, near Bulawayo, there is a healthy population of some fifty white rhinos and about fifteen of the smaller black species.
When we started on Sunday, there were twenty two to do, and in two days we managed eleven.
Monday, 4 October 2010
Struggling but brave foal
We are struggling with this one.
This little colt foal lost his mother at birth. Apparently he's four months old, but you wouldn't know it. Goodness knows what the owner was feeding him on - but he brought him into us at the Casablanca clinic a couple of days ago.
Galloping squitters and severe dehydration - hence the drip.
They say he looks a bit better already.
Hmmm. Not sure. Horses are just not as tough as donkeys - and they all need a bit of fight in them - the will to live.
Poor little scrap - it looks touch and go to me.
Friday, 1 October 2010
Supporter tour
Like most charities, SPANA depends on its supporters for the means to do its work. But this week, those supporters are getting a unique opportunity to get 'close up and personal' with that work. Twenty SPANA supporters are touring Morocco visiting the centres and mobile clinics - seeing for themselves just what their money is spent on.
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