Helping donkeys from donkey skin trade

The donkey skins situation has caused a great reduction of donkey population in many part of Kahama district, Shinyanga region Western Tanzania. As a result, most donkey keeping areas gone into troubles on daily basic needs. In addition to the donkey skins demands, these areas are bordering with the Shinyanga Donkey Slaughter house which increased the massive invasions of donkey poachers and business people to steal or persuade donkey owners to sells their animal .

This situation resulted in extremely low donkey production compared to the slaughtering , whereby the income of donkey owners has been greatly reduced creating difficulties in acquiring donkey protection knowledge, donkey shelters and veterinary care.

These donkey keeping areas are mainly donkey dependants, donkey are lifeline of many families whose need incomes from donkey work, the family of two working donkeys earn Tanzanian Shillings 20,000 – 30,000 per day and an average of Tanzanian Shillings 7,000,000 a year and the price of one donkey skin is Tanzanian Shillings 80,000-90,000, the donkey skin trade creates loss on both donkey and income within donkey communities

TAPO is conducting an Increase Donkey Value program on donkeys and their owners from village level to stop global donkey skin trade through the following activities.

1. Education Awareness- Training donkey owners 300-500 concerning the basic issues of caring their donkeys on donkey feeding, donkey diseases, donkey shelter, donkey cart & harnessing and donkey behavior with the discussion on profit of donkey keeping in comparison of donkey killings for their skins, and why & What is Ejiao. This education awareness through donkey protection and improvement of health and welfare of animal, this program will be implemented through livestock community partnership in every village center per 10 donkeys communities through analyze and discussion to identify donkey welfare constraint problems and find possible solution through education awareness. “Donkey Knowledge is a Family Knowledge”

2. Donkey Shelter Construction -Creating sense of ownership through free wire fences shelter construction within villages level to protect donkeys from stealing, killing and skinning with bells fitting by choosing donkey owners keeping donkeys without shelter.Creating sense of ownership by helping to build a donkey shelter or housing which will be role model within district level. Making of simple donkey shelters from local available materials will promote loving zones within village level to allow better management of sustainable donkey care and protection to overcome the repeated donkey theft and killings. “Donkey care is a Family Care”

3. Donkey Mobile Clinics Improvement of donkey health situation through animal mobile clinics in donkey communities. This activities aims to protect the health of livestock by conducting free regular animal mobile clinic to insure all donkeys receive adequate veterinary care on matter of disease prevention and treatment of common diseases and others, this clinic will visit all 10 donkey communities’ villages ,1000-3000 donkeys total targeted and helping to cover the costs of treating the village donkeys is a sustainable way of increasing donkey value to benefit both human and animal so that it will improve the livelihoods of donkey owners & family “ Health Donkey is a Health Family”

Budget

1. Production of 300 per leaflet for 7 leaflets of donkey care and protection information education materials which cost USD $ 200
2. Construct wire fences enclosures 3 x 10 villages which will cost USD $ 500
3. Donkey Veterinary care - Multivitamins 50 bottles cost USD $ 182.5, Pen strep 50 bottles cost USD $ 360, Hydrogen Peroxide 10 cans cost USD $ 16, Ivermectin inj 50 bottles cost USD $ 400,Needles & syringes cost USD $ 50