Saving the animals, one person at a time
Donna Lam always loved animals, so it was not strange for her to take strays home and when her family said no more, she badgered other people to foster them.
Whether it is a dog, cat, monkey or even a pig, Lam believes an animal must have a home instead of being abandoned on the streets and so in her own ad hoc way as a child, she was doing then, what she is now doing in an organized manner.
Today, as a member of the Rosewood Foundation-Guyana, Lam can be found rescuing animals or trying to educate others to treat them better. She does this all while running her own business and being a wife and mother, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. “I have been an animal lover since I was the age of three years old. My first memory was having a kitten,” she said during a recent interview.
Asked how she knew she was an animal lover, Lam said it is not difficult to figure out when you are unable to pass an animal without stopping to hug or interact with it in some way.
“I would find kittens and puppies on the road, but I knew I could not take them home because we had so many already. But I would sneak them into the house, under my clothes or in my backpack, and feed them for a week or so until I found a home for them,” she said of her rescue missions as a child.
And finding homes, she said, meant “basically bullying” people to make homes for the animals and if that did not work, she resorted to begging them. She was lucky that her entire family, except for one sister, loves animals even though they are not as passionate as she is. At one point, the family provided a home for dogs, cats, monkeys, birds, a goose and a pig, but Lam had most of the responsibility for taking care of the animals as she was the one who took them home.
It was at the age of 14 that Lam came to Guyana with her family after spending her formative years in Suriname and she said at that time they only brought their cat with them. She recalled that it was a difficult transition for her at the time because not only was she forced to leave some of her animals behind, but also her friends and everything that was familiar. Her cat, Black Prince, so named because he was completely black, did not last long as people were afraid of him not only because of his colour but also his size; he was huge and appeared wild. Children pelted him and one day in an attempt to escape the missiles thrown at him he ran out onto the roadway and was killed by a vehicle.
“That was when I realised it is not just about finding homes for animals; it is about changing the way people see animals. Just saving, rescuing and finding homes for animals was not enough,” she said.
Rosewood
But even though she came to the realisation, Lam said, she was unable to effectively change the way people see animals until she became part of the Rosewood Foundation in 2017.
She met Ecuadorian Ileana Bonnard, who is the wife of a diplomat, on Facebook, and the two along with other likeminded individuals set up the foundation. She noted that Bonnard was instrumental in the foundation because she had the experience of working with foster homes in Ecuador and her mantra was, ‘if there is one of us then there are two us and if there are two of us then there are more of us and we just need to find these people.’
After one month of existence, the foundation had ten members and today the membership stands at 85.
She described the foundation as a nonprofit to which members volunteer their services. Apart from finding homes for animals they also spay or neuter them in communities where people cannot afford to do same. They also educate the public by going into schools and teaching children what is kindness versus cruelty. People are also now being taught that animals can be used for therapy, especially for children who might be autistic or have Down syndrome.
“The main objective of the foundation is not to rescue every animal that is reported to us, it is my firm belief that we can’t rescue them all. I always tell my kids we don’t rescue animals we rescue people. We teach them to spay the animals and get the ones you have adopted and spay those as well. I found that compassion is contagious, if you teach somebody to be compassionate towards an animal, that person will teach someone else how to help their animals,” Lam said.
She noted that saving one person can in return save the lives of many animals and for her it is this approach which has made the foundation so successful in such a short period, “because we save people, we educate people.”
There have been hurdles to cross, Lam said, as there has been some resistance among people who feel that it is not their right to spay and neuter “voiceless animals” and deny them their right to reproduce.
“I will tell them the animal is voiceless and they cannot say ‘I don’t want to be pregnant at four months and have six kittens.’ A dog cannot say ‘I am 12 years old, I had 12 litters, I don’t want more. I don’t want to die of cancer’. So, it is just a matter of teaching people that there are options, you don’t have to have your animals reproducing all the time,” Lam said.
The foundation is also in close contact with other animal lovers and the Guyana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals as they all work to find homes for the animals and to provide medical care for them.
Going forward, Lam said, she would
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