Our partnership with The Donkey Sanctuary

The Greek Animal Welfare Fund has since 2000 worked in partnership with The Donkey Sanctuary in Greece. We are very proud of our long standing work together to seek to improve the welfare of donkeys and mules in Greece. Our staff and dedicated team of collaborating veterinary professionals have led and been responsible for delivering each year’s agreed programme of visits throughout Greece, but mainly in the islands treating working animals. Annual programmes have varied, but in 2018 there were 18 Outreach trips, and together GAWF and The Donkey Sanctuary treated and cared for a total of 1186 Equines.

In 2019 GAWF and The Donkey Sanctuary are implementing a change of direction to make a bigger impact for the longer term in changing attitudes to the welfare of donkeys and mules used in tourism in Greece. We will work together to create a tourism focused project, targeting the top three Greek welfare and complaint hotspots in 2019. This project will be a continuation of the Santorini approach we piloted together in 2018, with the roll out in two additional locations, Rhodes and Hydra in 2019. The aim of the project is to sustainably improve the health and welfare conditions of the working equines used in tourism, creating a scalable approach that can be replicated elsewhere in future years. Both GAWF and The Donkey Sanctuary will keep our social media platform updated with progress!

GAWF will continue to fund Equine Outreach visits in other locations in Greece based on assessed need that include horses, donkeys and mules, as we have done for many years.