Raising Awareness about Animal Welfare
There is a wide spectrum of animal health issues in Jordan. The root cause of this problem is that animal health and welfare in its manifold aspects is not a cultural priority in this region, and that it lacks serious institutional encouragement both at the human and practical levels, including the availability and affordability of professional and proper care and treatment of animals.
In Jordan, knowledge about, and the care and treatment of animals has remained of low concern, both in veterinary vision and in general education, contributing to poor animal health. Animal diseases, however, compromise animal welfare, reduce productivity, and can infect humans, but are often tolerated. Poverty, lack of awareness and dangerous folkloric medicine are aggravating the situation.
Whenever animal owners bring their sick or injured animals to HCAW’s facilities, our team exerts the utmost efforts to educate individuals about the importance of animal health and welfare by involving them in conversations and discussions and vice versa by listening to their complaints and their problems.
In the process, we are applying a wide range of different methods for our in-house awareness raising such as white boards with paintings and photographs, documenting the impacts and consequences of using wrong tack and tools, as well as illustrating the impact of different diseases. We also use exhibits as visual aids; among them, for example, specimen of stomach content including digested plastic and other harmful material. Our custom-designed leaflets provide information about simple solutions addressing some of the problems encountered during breeding, and herding, and about preventive practices. We seize every opportunity to include all family members, especially children, in our awareness raising efforts about the importance of animal welfare.
