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Thanda Inja | Vet care for all pets
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Setting up pop-up theatres and clinics under gazebos, the Thanda Inja project is bringing much-needed vet care to owners of pets in informal settlements.
Community members with pets have no access to veterinary hospitals or clinics in Daveyton, near Benoni, in Gauteng. When animals become sick, community members aren’t able to transport their pets via public transport, and can’t afford the costs of treatment. That’s why Thanda Inja – a Pug Rescue SA initiative – is bringing free veterinary care to the community.
Over the past four years Thanda Inja has partnered with the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (GDARD), to ensure that this mobile veterinary offering is a registered.
The Thanda Inja Project currently takes place in an open field where there is no running water, no ablutions and no electricity. Water provisions and a generator are transported in to each outreach, and with no buildings to use, a ‘pop-up’ theatre is erected with gazebos. At the end of the day these gazebos and taken down and transported back to the Pug Rescue SA sanctuary in Benoni.
The existing gazebos – which are a few years old – are showing wear and tear, and when sterilisations are taking place in rainy weather, there is water leakage into the theatre. Through the Thuso Fund, MySchool My Village MyPlanet will fund two new gazebos with sides to continue the great work being done. Over the past five years, Thanda Inja has been offering veterinary care in impoverished informal settlements to help sick animals and sterilise cats and dogs for a controlled and healthy population.
A future goal
Thanda Inja is aiming to build and equip an Animal Welfare Hospital which will be supported with mobile veterinary units. The ultimate goal is to expand vet services and care to other areas, so set up and break down of the clinic and theatres is less labour intensive, but the hospital won’t be operational for at least two years.
The project has now also expanded to offer a soup kitchen – for elderly people who leave home early in the morning to walk and find help for their sick animals. School children also visit the soup kitchen for a hearty cup of soup and a fresh sandwich on their way to school.
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