The Middle East Animal Foundation
And our life-changing volunteer hours with their team.
The MEAF is a non-profit organization by a group of passionate volunteers. IT was the first formally registered non-profit animal welfare organization in Dubai, and was founded in 2013.
It was set up to:
Improve public awareness
Prevent animal cruelty/abuse
Prevent trade of rare/domestic animals
Urge authorities to enforce the law
Provide support and guidance plans.
Whilst volunteering with them, we had the great opportunity to interview one of the core members, Mahin.
This is what we learnt from our talk with her:
MEAF’s aim is to empower volunteers who help rescue animals and to encourage the community to get involved to help animals on the streets. They strive to rescue, sterilize, feed and generally protect any animal in need in the community.
In order to accomplish this MEAF conducts events such as the flea market, but also raises awareness by spreading information through social media, verbally, or by distributing informative pamphlets. They also engage with children at schools through educational programs, to ensure people are educated from a young age. The workshops differ in levels, from basic training to overcome fear of animals, to advanced issues to show animals how to volunteer and do community work with them.
On top of this, they support the Ras Al Khaimah WIldlife Park, a sanctuary for wildlife such as lions, hyenas, crocodiles and more.
She also informed us on what a person should do if they see an animal which they think could be abandoned. YOu should first evaluate these things:
Is it in a safe environment, or is it in danger
Is it friendly or shy
Is it injured/sick or healthy (check eyes, teeth, or ears for infections)
Is it being fed
Is it sterilized (For cats, the top of one of the ears should be cut off)
If it seems like the animal is in any sort of danger, you should monitor it for a short while to see if they are able to survive on their own. If not, you should call any animal welfare organization in your city, such as MEAF.
MEAF is not able to take in any animals as they do not have a shelter (and if they did it would be full very soon), and all animals which are taken in are cared for in the homes of the volunteer workers. However, MEAF can give you instructions on what to do with the animal in order to ensure its safety such as getting it sterilized or bringing it to a vet.
We were also informed that many people use areas such as parks as dumping grounds for animals such as cats and birds which they do not want ownership of anymore. Other people release animals there after thinking they rescued the animal, but only create more problem as they did not do it properly.
This is why MEAF strives to educate people to ensure such issues don’t arise anymore.