Kyrenia Animal Rescue Needs Your Help

One of the most proactive charitable organisations working in North Cyprus is Kyrenia Animal Rescue or KAR. The charity tends to sick, injured and abandoned animals, it deals with stray dogs and cats, it is always available for advice and assistance to the general public and it has hundreds of animals at its rescue centre that the dedicated members of staff and volunteers at the charity have saved and nursed back to health…but the charity is in crisis.

Kyrenia Animal Rescue needs your help. An article published in the Cyprus Today newspaper this week has highlighted the financial difficulties that the charity is enduring at the moment and the statistics, facts and figures published show not only what an incredible organisation KAR is, but that we all have to act quickly and decisively to do all we can to keep the charity going.

Some of the bills the charity faces regularly are: - YTL 400 for water per month, YTL 193 for cat food a week, YTL 1,160 for dog food a week and GBP 2,000 for staff per month. In addition it has to keep rescue vans on the road, it has to pay reams and reams of vets bills for sick and injured animals and for the stray street dogs and cats it collects, has neutered and then returns to the street - and yet the level of charitable donation that the charity receives has dropped significantly.

The North Cyprus government insists KAR pays VAT which it cannot claim back, many members of the public believe KAR has deep pockets and doesn’t want for anything – but the sad reality is, its rescue centre is bursting at the seams, it needs considerable investment to expand it and improve not only the conditions for the rescued animals but the conditions for the staff and volunteers, it needs more help tackling the on-going stray animal issues that dog (excuse the pun) North Cyprus - and without your financial support it will not be able to carry on for very much longer.

One excellent initiative that the charity has come up with is setting up food collection points so that if you want to and are able to you can buy dog and cat food or rice and pasta and take it along to the KAR shop, rescue centre or offices – and this should hopefully alleviate the financial burden a bit. But looking to the future the charity needs consistent help and donations. It needs money, it needs more volunteers, it needs animal food and it would dearly love to have occasional free help from tradespersons who can do things like build more dog runs or just service the rescue vans.

Please, please think about helping KAR. Even if you aren’t an animal lover you surely don’t want to see all the rescued animals put down or put back on the streets? And even if you are not in the financial position where you can make massive monthly donations, a couple of tins of food or even a couple of hours of your time to walk a dog or clean a kennel can make all the difference.

Other ways you can help – you can sponsor an animal, you can make a donation or set up a standing order as we have done into the charity’s UK bank account - Bank: HSBC, Sort Code: 40-21-02, Account Number: 11364812. You can post a cheque payable to Kyrenia Animal Rescue to PO Box 450, Girne, Mersin 10, Turkey or you can give good quality new and used items to the charity shop to sell which can be found at No12 Bozkirli Sokak in Kyrenia (Girne, it’s near the fire station.

Finally, the charity’s website is http://www.kyreniaanimalrescue.org/ and we sincerely hope you will join us in doing what you can to help keep KAR going…