Volunteers from PRAVI Algarve dread the day they will no longer be able to come to the rescue of needy animals. The animal protection group has nowhere to place abandoned animals and finding foster families is becoming more and more difficult.
PRAVI Algarve, the regional branch of national non-profit, volunteer-based animal protection association PRAVI, is constantly facing the risk of “extinction” – unlike abandoned animals, which are a never-ending problem.
With no headquarters and no rescue centre to call their own and more animals being thrown out on the streets, the PRAVI volunteer groups in Faro and Albufeira feel they are reaching the end of the line.
“We cannot keep working under these suffocating conditions, we are always near our breaking point,” coordinator Marta Correia, 34, told the Resident which last week received a “cry for help” email from PRAVI asking us to expose their situation.
Focusing mostly on rescuing, neutering and adoption campaigns, but also providing animal-assisted therapies, the association is running out of foster homes for the dozens and dozens of cats and dogs it rescues.
“It’s impossible for us to help more animals if we do not have places to keep them,” she told us. “If people can take in one of our animals as a foster family, it really helps.”
The Algarve coordinator, who has lived in Faro for most of her life, explained that all the foster family has to do is provide the animal with a home. All other expenses – food, veterinary appointments etc – are covered by PRAVI, which is “a constant struggle” as it is sustained solely by the goodwill of its volunteers and donations.
Logically, one of PRAVI’s main goals now is to have its own headquarters in the Algarve.
Former Faro mayor Macário Correia had suggested the association build a HQ from scratch on a patch of municipal land, but the PRAVI coordinator explained it was not a “viable” solution.
“The soil was too muddy and unstable, and it would take too much money to build the HQ,” she explained.
For now, Marta said the current administration is analysing if there is an adequate location to receive PRAVI’s headquarters, six years after the association was launched in the Algarve.
The association currently has eight branches in Portugal: Albufeira, Aveiro, Faro, Lisbon, Maia, Santarém, Setúbal and Vila Real. There used to be one in Porto, but difficulties in maintaining it have led to its closure.
In the Algarve, around 25 volunteers work with PRAVI, which is always looking for more helping hands, and foreign residents are of course very welcome.
PRAVI also accepts all kinds of donations, from food, blankets and bowls to medicine and monetary donations.
For further information about the association and its needs, visit PRAVI Faro’s Facebook page, which is updated regularly. Alternatively, to make a monetary donation, bank transfers are welcome via NIB account number: 0033 0000 45415941649 05
918 597 018 | [email protected] | www.pravi.org
Photo: Volunteers of Pravi Faro
By MICHAEL BRUXO [email protected]
