QAWS | Qatar Animal Welfare Society

11 hours ago

An Open Letter to the Community..

We would like to start by thanking all of our absolutely amazing supporters who have stood by us over the years and enabled us collectively to help tens of thousands of animals. We could not have achieved anything that we have done without you all.

Despite the support from our amazing rescue community, we have reached our saturation point. We are simply overwhelmed with the sheer number of animals who need our help.

Every single week we receive literally hundreds of requests for help. Orphaned kittens. Dogs hit by cars. Abandoned pets. Starving strays. Reports of abuse. We have reached the point where we genuinely no longer know what to say in response.

We are absolutely passionate about animal welfare and rescuing those that need us. But please, please remember that although we willingly dedicate all our free time and energy, we are also just volunteers, trying our best. We make mistakes, we forget to return calls and we are often running late but it’s not because we don’t care, it’s because we care too much.

The hardest decisions we all have to make every single day are which animals to help. We can’t help them all, as much as we would give anything to be able to. When one lucky animal leaves our care we have to choose which animal to save next. It’s these decisions that keep us up at night. When we try to explain that we aren’t in a position to offer help at the moment, it’s not because we don’t want to, it’s just that we physically can’t right now.

We wouldn’t stop doing what we do for anything in the world but we do beg and plead that anyone contacting us - please, please have a thought for how tough it is for us too. We are doing our best.

We understand all your situations and you want to keep your rescue safe. We do too. But please also remember that turning up uninvited or abandoning an animal at our doorsteps causes another set of issues. We all operate emergency waiting lists. If we can’t take them in, please don’t post all over social media that the rescuers won’t help. We really want to, we just can’t.

We may not be able to offer an immediate solution but we will always do our best to guide, advise and offer support. Rescuing an animal is more than just dropping them on a rescuer or shelter. It sometimes literally takes years to find an animal their perfect forever home.

There are no registered animal welfare organisations or official funding opportunities in Qatar yet. Those that exist are volunteer run, we can only achieve what we do thanks to you all.

Over the next few weeks we will be launching a coordinated campaign to raise awareness of the issues animals in Qatar face, give advice on what to do if you find an animal and how you can help the rescue community as a whole. We hope that together, we can all work towards finding long-term, humane solutions to the stray and abandoned animal crisis we are currently facing. And one day, maybe rescuers won’t be needed at all. Wouldn’t that be an amazing day?

We are deeply humbled and grateful for all the support we get from our friends and apologise for not being able to do more,

Qatar Animal Welfare Society (QAWS)
Paws Rescue Qatar
2nd Chance Rescue - Qatar
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