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Good Cause of the Month
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Written by Pauhla Whitaker
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 The cause for May 2008 is Tree 0f Life for Animals (TOLFA) an animal charity founded and run by Rachel Wright, a British veterinary nurse who I first met when we did our diploma in Essential Oil Therapy for Animals together. [Editors note: For the month of May Donations from Nature's Nexus Animal Ecards go to TOLFA.]
TOLFA runs an animal hospital hear Ajmer, Rajasthan in India and runs several programmes...ABC (Animal Birth Control) for street dogs, Rabies vaccination for street dogs, a mobile ambulance to rescue ill or injured animals and a clinic for local farmers and pet owners.
The staff is entirely Indian assisted by volunteer vets, vet nurses, vet students and lay people with animals skills from all over the world and as a result of training and providing jobs for their compounders (vet nurses), has provided work for over 20 local people and brought them out of severe poverty.
TOLFA's work benefits people too by reducing the incidence of Rabies in the dog population (dog bites are the major cause of human cases) and by providing vet care and education to local farmers who would otherwise have to rely on sometimes ineffective and often harmful folk remedies to try and help their animals.
I went out to India in October 2007 to work at the hospital for a month mainly in my capacity as an essential oil therapist with the street dogs and kept a blog about my time there. You can read it at www.pauhla.bravjournal.com.
TOLFA's website is at www.tolfa.org.uk.
Rachel chose the name because the idea of the tree was so symbolic. Although she had a strong vision for the charity, she hoped that other people would help it to "branch off" along the way and help the organisation develop a broad canopy from a strong and rooted foundation and this is the way it has worked. It is affiliated to The World Society for the Protection of Animals and co-operates closely with other NGO's such as The Brooke Hospital and Help in Suffering who run a similar program based in Jaipur and Rachel hopes to open up more clinics in other areas based on the same model.
I make no apologies for choosing TOLFA as it is an organisation close to my heart and one that I have seen working. When I came home, the first thing I did was set about raising the money to buy a cow hoist to help move cows safely and humanely and also help them stand and keep the weight off damaged legs and vital organs after surgery. The joist went off with Rachel two weeks ago and as soon as a local blacksmith has made up a frame to attach a pulley to lift the hoist, it will be in action at the hospital.
TOLFA runs on a shoe-string. It costs just 25p to vaccinate a dog against rabies for a year and the cost of keeping one compounder in work is the equivalent of about £50 a month. Even a tiny donation will help the tree to keep on growing so please consider supporting TOLFA if you can. There are many ways that you can help raise funds listed on the website.
 Here is one of the dogs that I worked with. His name was Kermit, he came in with a de-gloving injury, malnutrition and severe anaemia. I worked with him using essential oils and although we came close to euthanasia at one point, his leg healed and the anaemia gradually resolved and he gained weight. Then, in January this year, he started to show signs of rabies and had to be put to sleep. There is no cure, and the disease may take anything from 2 weeks to 6 months to incubate after receiving an infected bite which he must have done before admission. Had he already been vaccinated, he would have lived but all TOLFA could offer him was care, food and a painless death. Having seen Rabies now, in this respect, he was one of the lucky ones.
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