The trek will be raising money to provide equipment for the only two equine clinics in Mali and Mauritania.

These are two of the poorest countries in the world and the SPANA run clinics provide vital life-saving and preventative veterinary care for the working horses and donkeys upon which countless millions of people depend. The vets work incredibly hard under very difficult conditions but are hampered and easily demoralised by the lack of suitable equipment and facilities.

When a horse or donkey dies or is ill or injured, the women and children become the “donkeys” and have to bear an additional physical and social burden. It surely can’t be “right” or fair that a 6-year-old child can’t go to school because she has to fetch barrels of water every day because the family donkey is ill or has died? Illness is at least (usually) temporary so long as veterinary attention is given, but the death of the donkey from a treatable or preventable disease means there is little or no hope of schooling or a better future.

The 32km that Horse Vets United will ride represents the distance an average work horse or donkey in the developing world has to travel each and every day.

Additionally, we want to provide (further) funding to support the Disabled Riding Centre in Bamako, Mali. This little centre provides physical, educational and emotional support for orphaned disabled children; most have been abandoned at birth and few survive beyond 8-9 years. The centre provides a few of them with their only respite from an otherwise miserable and desperate life- more children need to benefit from it!!

 

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