Cape Town USA vets visit 2001

(Cape Town, South Africa – 5 December 2001) – A group of American and Canadian veterinary surgeons got to grips with grassroots animal welfare issues today visiting the Community Led Animal Welfare (CLAW) clinic in Kliptown shack settlement, Soweto, South Africa.As more than 300 people came with their pets, CLAW vet Dr. Nthethe Raditapole sterilized pets in a class room dressed to the hilt with Christmas decorations and traditional “gumboot” dancers and a brass band performed while helpers worked to deworm, vaccinate and dip animals at the Kliptown Franciscan convent during the visit facilitated by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW—www.ifaw.org).“The work we have viewed here today is astonishing,” said Dr. Sheri Nutter of North Carolina, leader of the group. “It’s working proof that you don’t need a whole bunch of fancy facilities to make a difference to animal welfare. As long as you have dedicated personnel and an equally dedicated community, organizations like this can really help. IFAW should be applauded for helping this organization, which receives virtually no support from elsewhere.”The visiting vets have been brought to South Africa by People to People International, which provides professionals worldwide the opportunity to interact with their peers in other countries.CLAW, a project of IFAW, began its work in 1998, as a response to the lack of animal welfare in the former black townships. The organization provides a primary healthcare service to domestic pets in 14 of Gauteng’s most destitute informal settlements and has so far spay/neutered over 6,000 dogs and cats.IFAW is hoping the vets – who represent high profile practices in America and Canada – will return home to encourage other animal professionals to lend support on a voluntary basis to primary health care initiatives in South Africa.“CLAW receives almost no funding whatsoever other than that provided by IFAW which spends much of its annual grant on paying veterinary fees for sterilizations,” said Jason Bell, IFAW’s director for the Southern African Region.“Not only would a volunteer vet program be a wonderful support to CLAW, but it would give foreign vets interested in an African experience the option of combining such a trip with acquiring hands on veterinary experience in South Africa.“Additionally it would allow the veterinary component of our budget to be used for more extensive work,” said Bell.Kliptown shanty settlement is one of South Africa’s most impoverished communities. Home to 15,000 people who live mostly in shacks built from corrugated iron and recycled material, the area is without sewage or access to a formal water supply.The domestic animal population is estimated to number just over 2,000 pets – all adult pets have been spay/neutered under CLAW’s sterilization effort.The People to People vets, led by Dr. Sheri Nutter of North Carolina, USA, are small animal specialists and specially requested the opportunity to view CLAW as one of South Africa’s only community led animal welfare projects, which provides destitute people with a completely free health service for their pets.Dr. Nutter and her group who were taken on a walking tour of the informal settlement said they would return to the U.S. to encourage other veterinarians to follow their lead in helping out with community animal welfare projects such as South Africa’s CLAW.