The Brooke - Brooke in Guatemala

Country profile

Guatemala is situated in Central America and bordered by Mexico, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. Its indigenous people, the Maya, make up about half of the country's population of nearly 14 million.*

Guatemala is a mix of mountainous country and lowlands. Its climate is described as hot tropical – more temperate in the highlands, and drier in the easternmost region.

The majority of Guatemala’s 250,000 equines are kept by poor rural communities and used for agricultural related transport.

Current situation

distances between communities can be large © Martin Usborne

Reaching working horses, donkeys and mules and their owners and users in much of Guatemala is hard because the terrain can create access problems and the distances between communities can be large.

Most people keeping working horses, donkeys and mules in Guatemala lack the knowledge and resources required to provide good animal welfare.

Sadly, in a difficult social and economic environment many animal welfare management and health issues are overlooked until they become life-threatening for the animals.

Making a difference

To help remedy the situation, Brooke is working to improve the quality and sustainability of local animal welfare practices through Equine Welfare Assessor** or ‘promoter’ programmes (called community animal health workers in other countries).

The goal of the Brooke’s programme in Guatemala is to ensure measurable improvements are made in the welfare of working horses and mules.

measurably improving the welfare of working animals © Martin Usborne

To make these improvements, Brooke works with local partner ESAP (Equinos Sanos Para El Pueblo). And in 2009 we:

improved sustainability of our Equine Welfare Assessor (EWA) programmes by working with local service providers and partnerships
created a coherent advocacy strategy to bring about better animal welfare at local and national levels
headed the roll-out of an effective welfare-based monitoring and evaluation system

In 2009, we reached over 10,000 working horses, donkeys and mules.

* BBC World Service country profile

** Equine Welfare Assessors (EWAs) or 'promoters' are members of the local population who are trained specifically in the welfare of working horses, donkeys and mules. They then promote good welfare practices in their respective communities.