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Paterne Bushunju, head of the animal shelter "Sauvons nos Animaux" of the Democratic Republic of Congo
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by Karen Menczer
Just yesterday I returned from eastern Congo, where I spent a few days with Paterne Bushunju, founder & director of Sauvons nos Animaux (AKI Partner). It will take a while for everything to sink in. It was one of the more enlightening, thought provoking visits to an animal welfare organization that I’ve ever had.
For now, I’m overwhelmed with two thoughts/memories of my time with Paterne. The 1st is that Paterne, with some encouragement (and funding) from Giancarlo, a Facebook friend, started a movement, not just a shelter, a movement-in Bukavu, DRC, which had never before seen or heard of animal welfare/rescue/sheltering. I’m sure that neither Paterne nor Giancarlo would have believed that a Facebook friendship could lead to what Sauvons nos Animaux is today.
Sadly, Giancarlo passed away, but he did see some of the great strides that Paterne has made.
However, Giancarlo's work did not stop: the Ecospirituality Foundation he founded makes periodic collections for Sauvons nos Animaux.
Sauvons nos Animaux is more than a shelter: it’s a Kids Club, where school kids gather every day after classes to help with shelter tasks, play games, learn about cats and dogs. They are the 1st generation of school age kids that is benefiting from having an animal shelter in their midst!
What changes will we see? Will changes will they see? And what changes will they make themselves as far as treatment of animals in Bukavu?
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Tribute to Giancarlo Barbadoro, inspirer of the refuge
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Sauvons nos Animaux is more than a shelter: it’s an event, where every Sunday 100s of people gather in central Bukavu to run, walk, ride bikes, chat with friends, and take their dogs! This is in a city where, still, most people have no feeling for dogs.
Yet this movement called Sauvons nos Animaux is responsible for showing people that dogs are our friends, even our best friends.
The 2nd thought is one that weighs heavily on me: in the face of such a high incidence of poverty and so much human need, there are people who are helping animals. But, the very difficult thing is that there’s nothing to spare-there’s no food to spare, no money to spare, no supplies, for many, there’s no feeling to spare. And it shows. The dogs at the shelter are skinny (the cats are doing ok).
Even though skinny, a life at the shelter is SO much better than a life on Bukavu’s streets, where as Paterne told me, if a dog strays beyond his home, he will probably be killed.
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Some young volunteers from the shelter
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Without any possibility of a local donor base, Paterne has tried to get food scraps from hotels, donations from the supermarket-no luck, this movement is reliant on us.
Paterne and I did the calculations: at the current shelter population (45 dogs, 20 cats, not including puppies and kittens), to purchase high quality food for one year for both cats and dogs, the cost is about US$6840. That’s our goal now-to raise an extra $6840 so that Paterne has enough food to keep the cats and dogs happy and plump throughout 2023!
The dogs in the picture are the most recent SnA arrivals. They come from the streets of Bukavu-and if you can believe it, were even skinnier when they arrived at the shelter. Two of these dogs have an even sadder story: Paterne rescued them from their home, where their owner left them when he moved away, chained with no food or water!
While I was with Paterne, we bought enough cat and dog food to last about a month.
Over the next few months, I’ll tell you more about my visit with Sauvons nos Animaux, about SnA’s hopes and needs and challenges, and about the progress—we hope with your help!!!—that we’re making to reach our goal of raising $6840 for Sauvons nos Animaux’s cats and dogs!
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Volunteers from the shelter
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Karen Menczer with some dogs
who have just arrived at the shelter
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www.animal-kind.org
Karen Menczer is founder & director of Animal-Kind International
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