Brooke East Africa

Donkey harnessing improves in Kitui, Kenya

Pictured: A Kaliluni donkey welfare group member peels the sisal using a traditional method.

Initially, many donkeys were struggling on the road to complete a hard-hitting journey while nursing unbearable pain due to poor harnessing practises, but now, a majority of donkeys have no wounds. Indeed, the wide-fiber sisal ropes has reduced the prevalence of wounds on working donkeys, and the surplus realised from the rope-making project has enabled the women to access other donkey health and welfare services.

Brooke in partnership with Caritas Kitui linked the Kaliluni women's group rope makers to over 82 donkey welfare groups, making the dream of having no donkey with wounds a reality for thousands of owners.

Until now, at least 1,117 donkeys have benefited from the project, making a working donkey’s life worth living, free from body lesions.

In sight: a future where donkeys smile

Working donkeys in parts of East Africa’s regions have been facing harsh cruelty from users and owners who care less about their welfare so long as they fulfill their transport needs. For them, the need for better equine welfare was alien, leaving equine wellbeing at risk with owners severely whipping the donkeys to keep up with the pace despite being overloaded.

Having noted this menace, Brooke and its partner organisations started donkey care clubs among school-going children in the donkey-owning communities to create a future where human beings have compassion towards animals. Through the club, school-going children receive training on the importance of animal welfare since they are part of animal caregivers at home, improving donkey welfare since they train parents and their communities on better animal welfare.

Brooke in partnership with Caritas Kitui organises an annual talent show for the donkey care clubs, focusing on animal welfare content, which now helps educate the community on the need to create a life worth living for the working equines. The DCC children have also been using their creative sense with available resources to create mosaics, necklaces, and drawings that educate the public and push for better animal welfare.

Since the inception of the donkey care club, equine welfare has improved, with donkey owners and users showing compassion towards animals. 
 

Caren smiles again as her donkey receives treatment

Agrovet branding eases work for donkey owners

Donkeys in some rural parts of Kenya often fail to get medical attention owing to a lack of equine veterinary services and medicine, leaving most donkeys to work while enduring pain from body lesions and other medical complications.  Along the road, one notices donkeys working with open wounds while others seem sickly, with donkey owners hoping for better health without seeking medical services because of the inaccessibility of donkey veterinary services.

To solve the problem, Brooke, in partnership with Kenya Network for Dissemination of Agricultural Technologies (KENDAT), joined forces with strategic agro-vets to serve donkey owners among the donkey-owning communities in remote areas.

Six agro-vets in Tharaka Nithi, Embu, and Laikipia counties received training through the continuous Agrovet Quality Monitoring (AQM) program, which equipped them with the necessary knowledge to provide quality animal health services and advise to donkey owners and users. The agro vets were equipped with relevant donkey drugs, saving users and owners the trouble of traveling long distances to get veterinary advise and services for their donkeys.

The project also made the identification of selected agro vets easier since they were branded with visible APS material for easy identification among donkey owners, including the agro vet’s name, KENDAT, and Brooke logos, alongside donkey welfare messages.

With the branding of agro vets, donkey owners now have easy access to vet services and advise on how to improve the welfare of their donkeys. The agro vets were equipped with learning materials on donkey husbandry practises such as ectoparasite control, hoof care, home-based wound care management, and disease prevention such as rabies and tetanus for distribution to donkey owners.

Until now, the project has seen an increase in the number of donkey owners seeking help from these agro vets, playing a critical role in ensuring sustainable veterinary service provision among donkey-owning communities.

A notable change in donkey welfare can now be seen in the area, with donkeys having less or no body lesions and looking healthy.

Kenya: Homa Bay regains glow after the donkey slaughter blow

With the instigation of donkey slaughter in Kenya, its effects ravaged donkey owners who depended on donkeys to make their lives easier, putting loads on women's backs. Homa Bay County is one of the counties in Kenya that felt the effects of the donkey slaughter, with its donkey population decreasing by 4,649 donkeys in a decade. According to the 2009 Kenya National Bureau of Statistics census, the county's donkey population was 18,789.

Tanzania shuts down donkey abattoir

The donkey-owning communities in Tanzania are celebrating after the government shut down a donkey abattoir that has been taking a toll on the donkey population for violating animal welfare, humane slaughter, and slaughterhouse hygiene.

In a letter dated August 12, 2021 the Tanzanian Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries annulled a provisional permit allotted to Fang Hua Investment Company Ltd. in Ibadakuli, Shinyanga region.

According to the ministry, the donkey skin trade is prohibited in Tanzania until the donkey population surpasses ten million. Tanzania’s donkey population stood at 595,000 in 2018.

Brooke and partner organisations, Arusha Society for the Protection of Animals (ASPA) and the African Institute for Economic and Social Development in Tanzania (INADES-TZ), played a major role in achieving the ban, working closely with the Tanzanian government in a bid to ban the hide trade, which affected thousands of people dependent on donkeys.

According to the African Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW), many donkeys were stolen from Kenya and Uganda and illegally smuggled across the borders.

The Shinyanga plant is one the donkey slaughterhouses established by Chinese investors in Tanzania to enable a reportedly lucrative trade in donkey skins that are used to extract gelatin needed for the production of ejiao, traditional Chinese medicine that is said to allegedly treat anaemia, reproductive issues, and insomnia.

The Tanzania Veterinary Laboratory Agency reported that the numbers dropped from about 1.5 million in 2016 to 595,000 in 2018. By contrast, Kenya has about 1.2 million donkeys, compared with 1.8 million a decade ago, according to the latest data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.