The Brooke - Involving the community

To prevent animal health and welfare problems from arising in the first place, we believe it is essential to work directly with local communities. It is ultimately the owner who will determine the quality of life of his animal. The community programmes have been developed to make the owners aware of the importance of keeping the animal healthy and free from pain.

The purpose of the community programme is to achieve sustainable animal welfare through addressing the understanding and animal welfare needs of the communities involved.In the community programmes, the Brooke works together with the animal owners, and with the women and children who take care of the animals at home. We also include those who earn a living by providing animal related services (such as farriers, saddlers and local healers).

Community interventions with groups of animal owners.

Working together

The veterinary officers of the Brooke are working together with the community. This is known as a participatory approach. They learn from each other and contribute to each other’s knowledge and skills.

This so-called 'action learning', learning by doing, seeing, discovering and experimentation - will create ownership over the process and motivation by that community to improve animal welfare.

A picture of a group of animal owners working together preventing heat exhaustion of their animals.

The role of the vets in this process is to facilitate the process of joint activities, experimentation and learning. Furthermore they contribute with their technical knowledge to find solutions to the problems identified by the community.

Participatory method

The “participatory” part of this approach 'identifies' the animal owners as the principal decision-makers in defining the goals, planning and implementation.

The principle task of the Brooke vet, when starting off with a new community is community mobilisation, and to facilitate an in-depth situational analysis by the community members themselves. The vet can provide knowledge and appropriate technology once the animal owners have become aware of the root causes of the equine welfare problems and have identified the most pressing problems.

Therer are four major elements addressed in the community programme:

Group formation and building of sustainable social structures,
Improve problem solving and decision making capacity of the equine owners,
Development of self reliance for improvement of equine welfare,
Equine welfare related economic empowerment.

Campaigns and activities that promote best welfare practices

A variety of welfare campaigns and activities are conducted as part of the community programme to promote good animal welfare practices.

Radio programmes and billboards are used to disseminate messages to a large cross-section of owners and users, nationally and regionally, for long term improvement of the animal work environment.

Picture of happy children with their donkeys after the competition in India.

Promoting anaimal welfare using local folk song and drama group

The promotion campaigns include activities, often aimed predominantly at children, such as the Happy Donkey competition in India and donkey school clubs in Kenya. Involvement of children is very important: children work alongside the animals to supplement their family’s income, or simply to earn enough to survive on their own. This early exposure to the working world often leads to children picking up poor and even abusive equine welfare habits from parents and peers.

In Pakistan and India local forms of entertainment such as folk songs and drama are used, which are very popular with both children and adults and deliver animal welfare messages very effectively.

Training of community workers and service providers

Long term improvement of animal welfare requires knowledge and skills in the community. Therefore training is an important part of the community programme. Members of the local communities are trained by the Brooke to provide basic treatment in the village e.g. simple wound treatment, provision of painkillers and ointments. Discussions with and training of local healers is also an important part of improvement of animal welfare, as in a lot of countries animal owners still make use of them. We are also working together with local farriers and harness makers to develop appropriate designs based on local materials.

By working intensively with the communities of animal owners, learning from each other and passing on our skills and knowledge, we reduce the dependency on Brooke services. Together we build their capacity to look after their own animals, which will make life better for their animals and for themselves.

A picture of an animal owner in Pakistan grooming his donkey.