For the past few months, I have been in the US taking over my parents’ household. After 14 years abroad, 8 in Vietnam, this has been a very tough trip and I look forward to coming home to Vietnam as soon as the borders reopen. I left Vietnam at the beginning of March to come to Europe for the vegan festival circuit in order to increase our face-to-face fundraising so we could once again open the clinic. As the UK lockdown began and festivals started to cancel, I ran off to Edinburgh where I spent over 2 months working remotely...
Why Ethnocentrism in the International Animal Rights Movement is Stalling Long Term Progress
As international animal welfare and animal rights groups from the West frequently look to Asia as a conglomeration of lands of savage animal cruelty due to targeted marketing against the dog meat trade, some very sick and unproductive side effects have come out of this process. This process of singling out certain Asian countries, most of whom the average petition-clicker has never been to nor could they tell you much about it other than its location in on the Asian continent, has sent out a message that “Asians” (a term I loathe using due to the fact 60 percent of...
Why the Largest “Animal Advocacy” Organizations Are Avoiding the Subject of Livestock-Based Zoonoses During a Global Pandemic
We cannot continue to ignore the threat to human health from diseases originating in animal exploitation. If you are reading this from your home where you are forced to hang out with your family 24/7 or alone and have only Zoom parties as your social contact, then you should have a little understanding about why we are in this situation so you can be part of the solution now and when we finally get out of this global pandemic. What we must acknowledge now is that while public health experts, veterinarians, and global institutions tasked with understanding and preventing zoonotic...
Spring Update: Living with Uncertainty
We are all looking at the inevitable effects of Covid-19 for ourselves, our families, our jobs, and our businesses no matter where we are in the world right now. As we watch the stock markets plummet, the shops closing, schools shutting down for months in many countries, we are also looking at the effects of this pandemic on our work in Vietnam. As an organization that relies on international assistance for our programs as well as our funding, it is important to acknowledge how our work will be affected by the current state of Vietnam’s ban on visas for certain...
Missed our funding target but regrouping and marching on!
Since we did not hit our funding target in order to get the clinic building, we are having to regroup after this incredible disappointment to push forward as quickly as possible after years of struggling to get the care the animals of central Vietnam need. The building we want has still not been rented luckily, so we still have time a little time we hope, but our lease was to begin 11 March for us in order for set up for the upcoming vet visit. As “luck” would have it, our first vet volunteer was DENIED his visa to Vietnam...
The Monkey Mommy: from Rescue to the Big Picture
In February, 2012, I moved to Nha Trang, Vietnam and arrived with stars in my eyes. After a frozen year in Mongolia and a cold journey through South America, I came here with my dog and my cat from the US to start a new life. Vietnam seemed like paradise. I planned on just staying 6 months, diving, continuing my work on my Master’s degree, and then going to another country with my animals. And then I met Benjamin Button. Through him, I learned of the horrors of the Vietnamese wildlife trade while caring for one of its many young...
Marching Ahead with our International Veterinary Training Center
We are moving forward today and are never looking back again. This is why the clinic is opening this month, come hell or high water: We are tired of saying no. We are tired of feeling helpless. We are tired of being sent case after case after case that we know very well from years of experience and training how to treat with adequate resources, but without them can do nothing at all. We are tired of relying on people calling themselves vets who are not qualified to run a kennel of stuffed animals, much less diagnose or treat...
Lessons Learned: Stepping Up After Getting Burned
Opening a new vet clinic nearly 3 years after the failure of our last one is no small feat. For nearly 3 years, I worked my fingers to the bone trying to keep the clinic running on almost no money, with volunteers and even our head vet coming and going with no measure of consistency, and relying on the least reliable people to hold things together in the worst of possible places to keep anything together. Nothing about that experience makes me want to do it again except the memory of the days when we were actually able to provide...
Not Your Average Rescue Shelter
What makes VAAR different from other animal advocacy organizations in Vietnam and globally? For one, we are a non-speciesist organization, meaning we know that ALL species suffer the same and ALL species deserve the same chance at living a long, healthy life. We know that in terms of numbers of animals suffering, fish actually are the most vulnerable animals on the planet. We know that chickens are the most abused and murdered land animal globally. We know that dogs and cats killed for the meat trade make up less than 1% of the animals murdered unnecessarily in Vietnam yet receive...
Shelter Staff Salaries are NOT a luxury
We need to talk about staff and why organizations like ours are not capable of running without having full time, year-round, salaried staff, NOT volunteers coming and going. To clarify for those who do not work with animals, these jobs cannot be classified as unskilled labor just because they do not require a degree. Anyone who works professionally with animals can tell you that. Now lets take our staff out of their home country, put them in a country where nothing works, they don’t speak the language, and there are no vets to help them, much less a car to...