Sol Times 05/01 – Looking Forward

This is my article published in the Sol Times today. I talk about what I think is needed for 2011.

Happy New Year and thank you to everyone who has helped AlStrays in 2010 in any way, and also to those people out there who I hope will join us in 2011! This is a great time of year for new projects and interests, and also for reviewing our success to date and how to achieve more in the year ahead.

AlStrays is my project or more accurately my passion. To date I have organised the rescue and re-homing of close to 200 cats, and a few dogs along the way. I definitely could not have achieved this without the support of friends, Chris, other animal lovers, and the work of the girls in Germany who run the charity that finds such great homes for our Spanish street cats.

I started working with the strays in Almerimar 3 years ago, sterilising the port females, then moved on to re-homing, and in May 2010 I began helping the Mojacar PAWs girls re-home some of their cattery cats. Now I also work directly with a number of other people in the Almeria, Sorbas and Mojacar areas, including 2 fantastic Spanish vets, and together we have achieved so much in 2010.

I would like 2011 to be even better, and what I think would make a huge difference is improved communication. I want to know about as many of the street cats as possible now, particularly the tame ones. We cannot help them all at once, but with patience and your support we will help as many as possible. Sterilisation programs remain a key part of the work, as does fund-raising and donations. We also need foster parents urgently, and flight partners to Germany. First however we need to know what cats are out there so that we can prioritise better and avoid another kitten population explosion this summer.

Please contact me if you can help in any way, or are already involved with street cats and want to become part of the team. We will never solve all of the problems or help all of the many stray animals, but we do make a big difference to the lives of the cats that we can help (including Carys and Dylan pictured), and it is hugely rewarding work.

The German charity’s web site bears this moto from Confucius. “It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.” Together let’s make 2011 the year of even more candles!


Carys & Dylan

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