BootsnAll Travel Community

I regularly get emails from this excellent organization (which I visited for a day while in Mumbai).

Welfare of Stray Dogs

Their volunteers drive and walk around Mumbai and treat stray dogs with injuries. They also organize vaccination and spay/neuter drives and, as you can read below, fundraising garage sales.

I don't know how many booties will be in Mumbai or who will seek out a garage sale even though it's for an awesome cause...but you can read about it below and check out their website. Some time ago I tried to get into contact with them about finding a way for people from outside India to make donations but we didn't really connect...so if anyone contacts them and finds a way or gets a reply post here!

The garage sale:
Dear All

Please do spread the word around about WSD's garage sale.

regards
Abodh Aras
WSD

The Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD) is an animal welfare NGO that
sterilizes and immunizes stray dogs. We also have an adoption program for
abandoned
pets and pariahs, an on-site first –aid program and an education and
awareness program in schools, colleges, streets and slums. WSD has so far
sterilized more than 30,000 stray dogs and impacted the lives of
thousands more through first-aid and adoption.

WSD spends Rs 1,50,000 per month on the above activities and we depend
on the largess of donors to fund these activities. One of the methods
of
raising funds to sustain our costs is our regular garage/jumble sale
and we are having one from November 3-5 , 2006 (Friday-Sunday) at
Walkeshwar, Near Chowpatty.

On Sale would be L.P.'s, Cassettes, C.D's, Artefacts, Glassware,
Crockery, Crystal, Gift Items, Linen, Clothes, Furniture and Electronic Items
at THROW AWAY PRICES !!!

The proceeds of the Garage Sale would be used to fund the
above–mentioned
programs.

Venue : Ground Floor Garage, Surya Darshan Bldg, 44/50 Walkeshwar Road,
Near Sital Baug Bus stop, Mumbai 400 006

Date : November 3-5, 2006.(Fri-Sun) Time : 10 am to 7:00 pm

For more information you can call WSD on 23733433 or e-mail
wsd@wsdindia.org

--
Adopt a street dog ! They are a breed apart!
The Welfare Of Stray Dogs(WSD) Tel:23733433/23891070
Email: wsd@wsdindia.org Website: www.wsdindia.org
--

Thanks for this post. I have heard about this organisation. In Bangalore, there is CUPA - Compassion Unlimited Plus Action - http://cupabangalore.org/

Besides stray dogs they also look after other animals. I shall try and find out more for you about the Mumbai organisation, if you like.

Thanks!

I was actually there and met the director (?) - Abodh who signed the email posted above - and some volunteers, but sent a few emails and didn't get replies. Now that there is this cool invention called Skype, I suppose I could try and call.

If you are able to find out any procedure for how people outside India can make donations, that would be great. I have some professional-quality pictures (taken by someone else, not me) as well as an article about what they do which I would love to try to get published somewhere - but now that it's a bit old it would be nice to have something current like how to donate.

I will try to post some pictures of their first aid volunteers at work - such a cool program and volunteers.

I looked at the Bangalore link breifly and it looks great! Will check it out more in detail soon.

More news on this cool group: here

I met Abodh the CEO of this group years ago through a friend he worked in the same company as mine but in India. He had just given his corporrate job and decided to do this full time rather than just volunteer.


So glad to see somebody living their dream and making a diff!

That's funny Madhu - I suppose it means we are connected by one degree of separation via Abodh(everyone in the world is supposedly connected by six degrees??).

He seems very cool - he was just out at some fair and we started talking about the Cheesecake Factory in Chicago. I went along with two first aid volunteers the next day to see what they did, and they said Abodh still goes out and chases stray dogs and stuff (to treat them or vaccinate them) and has been bitten a few times of course but still does it. Neat person.

Their latest: a series of youtube videos featuring dogs that need homes.

A pariah - breed unique to India which commonly lives on the streets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRgEjaagqgg

and

a few

others

My impression is that most of their volunteers live there and they don't do anything like arrange housing, but it's really neat to see an organization doing innovative things like this. I think if you are spending time in Mumbai it would be interesting to see how a successful local organization works...

I signed up for their mailing list almost 3 years ago and get interesting stuff like this from time to time only.