"Look, Jeremy", the senior officer of a famous British regiment, grabbed me by the arm. "We're breaking our necks trying to win the battle of 'Hearts and Minds' out there. We've built drains and septic tanks, bridges and water systems. But, in Afghanistan, everyone is a livestock farmer - and there are just no vets at all there. I know what SPANA does, and it's just what's needed out there. Can you come and help? Please!"



When I'd recovered from the shock of such a request - and he… Continue

With Jeremy Hulme, SPANA’s CEO, off visiting our projects in Tunisia, this blog is from Simon Pope who oversees SPANA’s Communications Department.

Like many people of my generation, Ethiopia came into my consciousness about 25 years ago with the BBC reports about the drought and then the subsequent Band Aid / Live Aid initiative overseen by Bob Geldof. Now, a quarter of a century later, and with new BBC reports about droughts in the region , many… Continue

Just spoken to Marrakech - he has 'un grand amelioration' - ie he's much better - even sucking milk all on his own now (that's a terrific step forward).



Though apparently, with all this energy, he's making a real nuisance of himself, bouncing around and getting into mischief all over the place - knocking over the vet's trays while they're trying to work on other animals. But of course everyone has fallen for him - especially the two girl volunteers. But with ears like that, who… Continue

Firstly, thanks for all your messages of support for the team in Marrakech who are helping Tommy pull through.



Tommy is making huge progress, as you can see from the photos - he's still not sucking, hence the bandage round his nose holding the nasal-gastric tube in place - saves having to do the risky process of inserting/removing the tube every two hours. Alex (the girl in the photos) is a veterinary graduate from Cambridge - she's one of the volunteers getting very little sleep… Continue

Hurrah, hurrah, he's doing well. The temperature/pneumonia worry is always there, but touch wood, he's fine at the moment. Still being fed by nasal-gastric tube, every two hours, day and night, but he's getting stronger every day.



They hope that soon he will develop a proper sucking reflex, but of course nobody knows just how premature he might be. Sucking is much better for the digestion than a stomach tube - all the wee scrap's 'systems' will work better.



But he is… Continue

Well, the good news is he's still going, the bad news - it's a bit of struggle.



No surprises there I suppose - the poor wee scrap's got a lot of challenges to face.



Main problem, he's probably quite premature - though hard to be accurate as to just how much. But it translates into he's got no sucking reflex. So, to feed him we've had to do it by naso-gastric tube, every two hours. Now, you can imagine, feeding the tube across his trachea as often as that, it would be very,… Continue

You always know when something awful is happening in our animal hospital in Marrakech.

There is a sudden kerfuffle, perhaps with a certain amount of yelling – then some histrionics – usually involving grown men and women weeping copiously.



So it was last night just as darkness began to descend. Oh, but I forgot to say, at the same time as the histrionics our team goes into overdrive, while at the same time depicting a stony-faced… Continue

Now don't get me wrong - I just love Chinese food. Normally that is. But in North West China it's a bit different from the stuff we get here at home - which people tell me is generally southern or Cantonese cooking.



Apart from aquariums all round the restaurants' walls containing the main course (but still alive!) the food is hugely spicy. So, I suppose if Mexican cooking is your thing, it's the very place for your next vacation, but for me, I find eating a breakfast which leaves… Continue

We’ve done pretty well for rain this year.We were away for the only nice week in June in Brit, and then we were in Ethiopia – rained every day, and now Mali. And guess what. Rainy season.



Deluges of the stuff. Flooding the streets and open sewers of Bamako, and running orange-brown torrents off the hills and down into the river. What a river it is too. Over half a mile wide in the city, the swirling pewter-grey mass of water sweeps under the two bridges where the traffic sits… Continue

Just returned from a wonderful ten days in Canada - ostensibly to see family, but how can you go to Canada without getting stuck into the wonders of nature ?



So we spent lots of time in the woods, looking for bears, wolves, moose and all the other wonderful creatures of the northern latitudes - especially exciting for someone who likes to paint or draw them.

It's not only the big, sexy numbers that give pleasure - for us, watching dragonflies flitting over the lily-covered… Continue

Last time I was talking about our veterinary clinics in the North of Tunisia, and the bleak arid zone around Kasserine in the centre. But of course, Tunisia stretches way down to the south - in fact it's shaped like a dagger pointing right at the heart of the Sahara.



But I love it there. It is another world, and worlds away from the forests and mountains of the north.

Our centre is in Kebili, where we were given a bit of sand by the Ministry to play with, and over the last six… Continue

Tunisia is a strange country - in fact it's more like two countries. Many people might wonder what SPANA is doing there at all, but that's because they go there as holiday makers in search of the sun, and rarely stray out of the coastal beach resorts. There they see slick tourist resorts and villages along with the wealth and prosperity that brings to local people.



But move inland, and only a few miles at that, and you come across a totally diferent Tunisia,



Here life is… Continue

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Hurrah, hurrah. The nightmare that was the 2009 London Marathon is over. I survived – but only just. In fact the reason it’s taken a few days to write this, is that I’m only just now walking again without sticks.



Blisters. I’m now an expert on blisters – my poor feet – I had blisters on the blisters. But since, if you remember, the whole point of the exercise was to get a worn-out, broken-down old geezer (me) to…

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Last week we were in Syria – we’ve had a SPANA project there for fifteen years now. Slightly strange place, difficult, tough government, yet the people are some of the nicest in the Middle East. They are, because of the politics, very cut off from the west, so when Diana (our Education Director) gives a Teacher Training Course (we have just produced the standard curriculum text-book on animal welfare and the environment), everyone is aching to hear and try out the latest methods.…

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We have been trying for several years to provide fresh, clean drinking water for the working animals of Marrakech. ‘Not very difficult, that,’ you might say, ‘Build a couple of good, old-fashioned water-troughs’.

Ah, but you haven’t reckoned with the bureaucracy of the Moroccan authorities, nor the cunning of its citizens.



After several months of petitioning, we did indeed finally get permission to build a couple of troughs around the city. ‘Water is expensive’, they said.…

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SPANA (Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad) is one of the world’s oldest international veterinary charities, providing practical care for around 380,000 working animals a year in 8 countries in Africa and the Middle East.

Millions of people around the world still get their income from a working animal, be it a donkey, mule, horse or camel. For thousands of years they have been the only truck and taxi that millions of…

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