VAWZ and Gerry the cat

1 05 2019

Veterinarians for Animal Welfare Zimbabwe (VAWZ) is one of the more active animal welfare organizations based in Harare. They take animal welfare to the rural areas in the form of education, neutering and general clinics and like a lot of welfare organizations in Zimbabwe at the moment are having a hard time raising cash. It’s not surprising, the much vaunted slogan of the President, E D Mnangagwa, “Zimbabwe is open for business” has turned out to be empty of any meaning. He continues to squander hard cash on hiring a private jet for business whilst the economy tanks and the local currency dives in value. Hyper-inflation looms once again.

The Rescue & Release fund raiser was held at a local pub recently. Volunteers (with a bit of coercion) were face-painted and dressed up to represent various animals and “locked up” in a cage and were only allowed out once they’d raised there release/ransom fee of $10,000 (that’s local currency). Some of the more socially connected had raised the money even before being locked up. The evening went well with some $45,000 raised.

: A friendly lion

: A pensive (frustated?) zebra

: That’s a croc on the left and another reptile (perhaps a snake?) on her left.

: Dr Taps force feeds the giraffe. Not sure if she was enjoying it…

: Gerry the cat. Known as Gerry Jackson outside of this event.

: Dr Taps and Gerry ponder the next move

: Force feeding the giraffe

: The zebra and donkey hustling potential donors

: They were only allowed out the cage once the “ransom” had been met. In theory.

: The early evening crowd at Corky’s pub in Ballantyne Park, Harare.

This last Sunday there was another VAWZ fundraiser in the form of the annual Scruffs Dog Show. Open to all and sundry it was a fun morning with lots of categories to suit all breeds and sizes of dogs. Sadly it was not as well supported as in the past though the sponsors certainly stepped up to the plate. Please support VAWZ if you can – they do such good work.