AHT MENTORSHIP ENABLES VETERINARY EXCELLENCE AND FOSTERS FUTURE INDEPENDENT PRACTITIONERS
What if Animal Health Technicians were the catalyst for both extending vet services and human-animal-veterinary relationships?
This would mean increased health and well-being for animals, humans, and poor communities, throughout South Africa.
Our strategy focuses on Animal Health Technician mentorship with financial literacy education to empower a potential network of independent practitioners that addresses the transformation needed in animal health service delivery to townships, informal settlements, and rural areas throughout South Africa.
COLLABORATION AND PARTNERSHIP ARE KEY TO SUCCESS
SAID Programmes, Partners and Donors connect around a shared passion for animals, people, and our environment. The urgent challenges facing animal welfare today are too big and too interconnected to solve alone.
Our long-term goal is simple: to create a country where people and animals thrive.
Over half a million of the 5.8 million people and their pets live in 181 informal settlements and 57 townships suffer from lack of animal healthcare. Just in Johannesburg.
A 2020 veterinary evaluation revealed that 82% of households in Diepsloot Ext. 1 own an average 3.5 pets per family. Only 38 vets per million of South Africa’s population typically serve animals from families in specific urban areas. Exacerbating a nationwide prolonged state of deplorable animal health, human veterinary health risk, and biosecurity liability.
SAID seeks to advance business partnerships for funding from donors such as corporates and others to enable and expand the network.
Potential independent AHT Practitioners offer partners the opportunity to reconceive products and undeveloped markets, redefining productivity in the value chain, and strengthening local healthcare clusters.
CORPORATE PARTNERS AND FOUNDATIONS
Help create a better world for animals, people, and the planet
We are proud of the partners and foundations who endorse our mission. They contribute an essential role in helping build a world where animals, people, and the environment, thrive together
HOW DO SAID PROGRAMMES DIFFER FROM SECTOR PARTNERS?
Our One Health approach focuses on developing innovative strategies through the nationwide positioning of AHT’s to engage marginalized pet owners in healthcare.
19 AHT’s completed mentorship including mobile unit field work and in-hospital care.
14 AHT’s progressed into the wider veterinary sector, government posts, business, and the pursuit of University Master’s Degrees.
5 SAID AHT’s are highly competent in delivering important roles for professional and high-pressured veterinary Outreaches
3 AHT run Mobile Units educated and provided care on average for *64 913 owners, vaccinating 23 641 animals
3 AHT Mobile Units raised Peer zoonosis awareness about ringworm, rabies, mange, worms, cat scratch disease, giardia and more.
7 656 new animal patients for sterilisation.
Engaged new clients and re-engaged existing clients in health
Consistent Monitoring and Evaluating the welfare of animals in the vast impoverished communities.
CASE STUDY
A Programme outcome evaluation was completed in August 2020 to determine if animal health is stabilised in Diepsloot and the long-term effectiveness of domestic animal health services delivered by SAID AHT mobile units. And, to inform decisions about whether to continue or replicate or scale up programmes.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS, VETERINARY PUBLIC HEALTH AND ANIMAL PROTECTION
An indivisible relationship
How do The Society for Animals in Distress Programme Partnerships link to the SDG’s?
As we continue to rely on the services provided by healthy natural systems, which necessarily include animals because they affect critical issues such as food security, employment, public health and climate mitigation, the critical relationship between humans and nature remains fundamental.
Key areas of opportunities in which companies can foster long-term value in support of their sustainable development goal priorities and targets.
ONE HEALTH
First, is that humans, animals, and the world we live in are inseparably linked.
Second, is the collaborative effort of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally, and globally to attain optimal health for people, animals, and the environment.
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
University of South Africa (UNISA), and specifically the Animal Health Department, has been working with The Society for Animal in Distress over the past 5 years. It has been a very fruitful relationship with numerous positive outcomes. A number of UNISA Animal Health students, known as Animal Health Technicians in South Africa, have had the opportunity to be exposed and mentored in the welfare community and environment in which The Society operates. Going forward The Society will be trusted with the practical hands-on mentorship and training of UNISA students in an additional programme for Veterinary Welfare Assistants. We are invested in a long and trusted relationship with The Society. We appreciate and commend The Society, their staff and facilities for their focus on delivering high standards of workplace competency. The Society's mission, to drive access to veterinary care for animals in indigent circumstances through the mentorship of para veterinarians, is valuable to the wider veterinary and welfare community.DR JOHAN OOSTHUIZEN
UNISA - SENIOR LECTURER
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