Brooke mobilises community to rebuild animal health centre

Kofele Woreda in Ethiopia has over 57,000 working equines and the Kofele Town Animal Health Centre serves many of these animals and their owners.

Owned and run by the local government, the centre offers routine veterinary treatment, as well as receiving referrals from small animal health clinics. It is also used by Brooke staff to host training workshops with owners and local service providers.

In January 2016, the centre was caught up in protests and destroyed. Brooke’s local woreda office was also damaged, along with other nearby animal health centres.

Animal health care services in the woreda were halted for four months. Access to equipment, drugs and vaccines froze and Brooke-run training was suspended as the local government and community struggled to gather the funds needed to rebuild the centres.

Seeing the effects this loss was having on the local equines and their owners, Brooke’s field staff operating in Kofele Woreda approached relevant stakeholders in the local government and the community to discuss how to move forward. Brooke staff were able to mobilise the community in reconstructing many of the smaller centres used for training and health posts. Thanks to the community’s contribution, worth over 350,000 Birr (around £12,000), all 35 offices which were victims of the unrest have been reconstructed.

Since the woreda did not have the budget to reconstruct the Kofele Town Animal Health Centre, measures were taken to build a temporary guardhouse made of corrugated iron to act as an office for the staff. Brooke was also able to agree the rental of a local government office for one year whilst the centre is rebuilt.

With the help of Brooke’s field staff, the local community and the local government, the situation has settled and normal health care and training activities are resuming, with plans to reconstruct the large Kofele Town Animal Health Centre well underway.