17,000 equines across 12 states – reflecting on Brooke India’s Covid-19 emergency response
Temporary equine shelter in Anand Gujarat
When Covid-19 brought devastation across India in the spring, Brooke India quickly sprang into action devising plans to help vulnerable equine owning communities. To date, over 17,000 working horses, donkeys and mules and their communities have received support across 12 states and union territories.
A special Emergency Support Fund was created to support community based organisations across Brooke India’s operational areas. From April to September, this provided equine owning families with 58,404kgs of equine fodder, 55,049kgs of balanced feed supply, and 547 first aid kits. As well as this, Brooke India-trained Paravets administered Tetanus vaccinations to 726 equines and dewormers to 268 equines.
Additionally, Brooke India provided capacity building virtual training to 280 community based organisations to ensure they could plan, design and deliver emergency response during a future crisis.
Following this first phase, in October Brooke India expanded the scope of its activities and built two temporary animal shelters in the Vadodara region, thereby providing safe shelter to 69 working horses, donkeys and mules. Additionally, equine welfare projects in Baharaich, Banda, Fatehpur, Pratapgarh, Lakhimpur, Kaushambi, Lucknow and Amritsar received emergency funding to support 722 working equines, which also supported the construction of four temporary equine shelters.
To date, India has recorded almost 10 million Covid-19 cases and more than 144,000 deaths from the virus. Looking ahead, Brooke India will continue to provide necessary support to vulnerable communities and the animals that support them.