Sharanaksh - Help Us Relocate and Build a New Shelter For Animals

SHARANAKSH is a non-profit Trust dedicated to the rescue, care, rehabilitation, and re-homing of neglected/abused dogs. The word “Sharanaksh” has been derived from Sanskrit words Sharanam (meaning shelter) and Raksha (meaning to protect).

This trust was established in Aug-2018 by a group of avid animal lovers led by Sai Geetha. The animal shelter is called “Community Streeties India (CSI)”. CSI is located in Devanahalli (Bangalore, India) near a village called Avathi.

CSI welcomed their first batch of 8 rescue dogs in Apr-2019, and is now home to 95+ dogs (pups, young adults, and the elderly dogs who are happily living out their days at the shelter). Our family will undoubtedly increase in the future, while we aim to progress towards sustainable solutions.

There’s a rise in stray dog population in both Urban and Rural Bangalore which may be due to weakening of the Animal Birth Control & Vaccination program by the civic authorities and the growing unorganized human settlements contributing to un-segregated or untreated garbage that attract scavengers and strays.

There is a public misconception that strays are harmful. These animals are often ill-treated, harmed and even culled

There are illegal backyard- breeders not registered with the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) who abandon the older dogs and pups that they do not see as profitable anymore. These add to the stray population and found in horrible conditions when rescued.

The pandemic further led to many families either abandoning their pets, because of reasons like economic distress or relocation to different cities/towns, leading to an increase in the stray population and rescues.

Apart from the known issues surrounding this field of animal welfare, the number of critical cases reported to CSI has increased greatly. The lack of space and infrastructure will only lead to us denying intake of animals after a certain point. Animals need our support and we need yours to help them.

CRITICAL CHALLENGES

There have been critical challenges with the running of shelter lately such as shortage of water supply, frequency of power cuts, access roads getting damaged due to constant vehicle movement and rains, and no space for vehicles to park for vendors to drop off supplies (previously which was open space has now been blocked) which is making it difficult to continue at the current location. We plan to move to a new and better location which we have identified. The current facility is Half an acre and the new identified land is 1.5 acres.

However, to continue saving and rescuing more stray dogs, CSI needs your help to achieve a goal amount of Rs. 40,00,000. With the funds collected, we intend to lease land for over 10-15 years, construction costs right from boundary wall, borewell to sheds for dogs and living space for workers, kennels, partitions and isolation units, UPS for continuous power supply and CCTVs for better monitoring and surveillance, and also tocover relocation costs.

With the funds raised, it will help us increase our capacity to rescue and save more animals in the rural area, support with more space and infrastructure for critical cases and expand our reach to other surrounding villages and help with sterilizations and vaccinations. The funds will help in hiring more people/increase manpower to manage the shelter operations and more outreach programs for awareness and adoptions.

Currently, the animals in rural areas are largely neglected, with the lack of infrastructure and facilities. Most villagers rely on large animals for their bread and butter, and hence reasonably taken care of; however the smaller street animals like dogs, cats etc. are left unattended to and neglected. Most are unsterilized and unvaccinated because no local body/Panchayat takes up the responsibility of the same, putting the life of the animals and humans at risk and increasing human-animal conflicts. By increasing our shelter capacity with not only infrastructure and manpower, but we also will be working with panchayat towards making a larger impact on the safety of not just animals but humans too and involving them in our endeavour for a better and more humane environment to live in.