Community and Charity

It is important to remember that we are all part of a wider community. It can be very easy to forget others and become very wrapped up in our own worlds, especially with the pace of life today, and the way we live it.

Years ago, communities were much more localised and some people bemoan the departure of the old ways. My view is that we can actually be connected to community much more easily today - modern technologies, and particularly the internet make this much easier.

I like to put something back into the world and this page lists some of my favourite, or otherwise signifcant, Charities and other community organisations.

Room To Read - World Change Starts With Educated Children ®

WSPA - World Society For The Protection Of Animals

Cats Protection - Formed in 1927, Cats Protection has grown to become the UK's leading feline welfare charity. They now rehome and reunite 55,500 cats and kittens every year, through their network of 256 voluntary-run branches and 29 adoption centres.

Incidentally, if I find a stray cat or dog I am very careful about where I take it. The reason for this is that many council pounds/facilities and other similar places carry out large scale executions. At times these can be carried out before an animal's owner comes to claim it. Frankly I am never going to take an animal to what is essentially an almost certain death. Some of these places have nice sounding names that appear benign, or associated with animal welfare or similar. Granted, some of them do very good work on behalf of animals as well, however one of the aspects that I object to is that the whole system has the effect of tending to minimise public awareness of the scale of deaths, and of what really happens at these places. Neutering campaigns and associated PR are a good idea, however I suspect one of the reasons for the relatively low take up is that what goes on behind the scenes is served up in a "palatable" format for the public, who are left largely in the dark as to the full horror of it all. One additional side effect of this lack of awareness is that it increases the numbers of animals taken to the facilities, which I suppose is seen by authorities as helping to reduce the "excess animal problem". And simply speaking, I cannot look some animal in the eye whilst taking it to meet its executioner. Can you? Check that wherever you are taking a stray animal to is not going to kill it. And bear in mind that some vets send stray animals they are given to these places too.