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Christmas
Aid to Horses in South African Townships
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An
international horse welfare charity is rushing much needed aid to
Cape town townships where the horse population is being struck down
with equine 'flu.
The
ILPH (International League for the Protection of Horses) has responded
to a request from the Cart Horse Protection Association in Cape
Town and is sending £4,500 which will buy 1,000 vaccines to
protect township working horses.
Says
Ian Kelly, International Training Manager at the ILPH, "The
vaccines that we are providing will give these working horses a
much greater chance of survival against the flu epidemic, thus ensuring
that they will be able to continue their work to provide an income
to support very poor families."
The
ILPH has just completed the first year of a new 5 year project,
supported by the Cart Horse Protection Association, to train scrap
metal cartiers in the Cape Town townships better horse welfare.
This training takes the form of equine nutrition and management,
harness making and farriery.
Continues
Ian, "The people we are training are trying to improve their
standard of living by collecting and selling scrap metal. They are
people with no, or very little, equine experience and the abuse,
through their ignorance, that their horses were suffering was beyond
description.
"By
giving this support in the form of vaccine we are trying to divert
a catastrophe by ensuring that their sole means of income is kept
alive."
www.ilph.org
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