I have just returned from visits to all our operations in Europe and although tired am very happy to report that in every project we are expanding our work to help more donkeys either through rescue, education or in fact any means available to us. As well as Cyprus we are also working in Spain, Italy, France, Romania, Portugal and Albania. So that we can help as many donkeys as possible in different areas, we are setting up what we call licensed holding bases in remote locations so that we can provide care where it is needed. We have just completed the first of these in Romania, a country where care for animals is a very rare commodity. To date we have rescued over fifty donkeys, many from terrible circumstances, and we are finding more that need our help every week.

In Greece despite suffering from a major operation in December, Sotiris, the owner of the holding base came to meet me, he wanted to ensure that we would be able to continue supporting donkey welfare in Greece as again so few people are dedicated to animal welfare in the country. I assured him that he would have our support and he and his small team could continue to rescue donkeys.

As the size of our operation grows in Europe so does the amount of money needed to keep it all going, I am spending lots of my time appealing to people to support us and to date have been so pleased with the response. In times of financial trouble such as we have now it is encouraging to see that so many people can still spare a little time and compassion to think about the suffering of animals and continue to support our work. With support like this we will continue to help donkeys in trouble wherever we find them.