LLH's Shelter Spotlight introduces you to amazing people and organizations that are helping animals around the world.

AWARE (Animal Welfare Association - Rescue/Education) works in Guatelama helping stray and abandoned animals, reducing overpopulation, and educating the next generation in humane animal care. Their shelter is home to over 300 animals.

LLH caught up with Xenii Nielsen (left in photo), one of AWARE's founders, who took time out of her busy schedule to tell us about AWARE and life in Guatemala's Central Highlands--a beautiful, temperate place some of you might like to visit to lend a hand!

Q: Tell us how AWARE started and what you do.

AWARE operates a No-Kill animal shelter just outside Sumpango Sacatepéquez.

AWARE grew out of several previous attempts to create a functioning, dynamic animal welfare group in Guatemala. Finally we found the right mix of people to move ahead, and AWARE was founded in 1998, when it became a registered NGO here in Guatemala, and a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entity in the USA in 2001.

All animals coming to the Shelter are given all necessary vet treatment, including flea and worm control, are spayed/neutered, socialised both with co-specific and human animals, and put up for adoption. About 90% of all animals passing through the Shelter are eventually adopted. It is part of AWARE’s policy to ensure that animals only go to suitable homes.

In co-operation with veterinarians from Guatemala and other countries, AWARE organises periodic low- and no-cost spay/neuter clinics, and free rabies vaccination clinics, in local communities in Guatemala, and in our on-site veterinary clinic.

AWARE conducts school visits to inform children about the work of the Project, and to contribute to the environmental and pet-care education of children in Guatemala.

Q: What are some of your special programs or missions? 

Our constant focus is on putting across the spay/neuter message, and in getting as many animals as we can sterilised. In the long term we see our mission as an educational one, since a change in attitude is the foundation of a change for the better in the lives of domestic animals (and of everything else, of course). Our next major project is the construction of an on-site education centre.

Q: What is a typical day like for you or your employees / volunteers?

As soon as the sky starts lightening at dawn, the 15-or-so House Dogs start agitating for their morning run, rain or shine. The Volunteers roll out of bed and start taking care of the animals in the Clinic – meds, changing bedding, food & water, exercise for the mobile ones. At 7 am the Dog Walker begins his rounds, taking out the dogs in groups of up to 10 for their daily bound through the woods. Meanwhile the employees start cleaning out the dog pens, doling out breakfast, changing water and attending to the cats, with their quieter but no less hungry needs. As the day goes on animals needing veterinary attention are identified and either attended in the on-site Clinic or driven down the mountain to one of the vet clinics in Antigua which help us out. Every now and again it’s the major mission to Nestlé-Purina in Guatemala City to pick up their latest donation of animal food. Otherwise it’s maintaining the installations, shopping, errands, utility bill paying, getting a batch of puppies to the airport for their trip to California or Miami, always something needing attention or repair and at sundown residents and volunteers alike collapse, hoping for a night without emergencies.

Top Right: AWARE helper John gets some love from two canine friends.

Left: Volunteers Jimmy and Laura having fun and helping out. Past international volunteers have come all the way from Holland, Germany, Japan, Italy, Turkey, the UK, Sweden, Australia, Canada, the USA, and other countries!

Q: Can volunteers from abroad visit AWARE and help?

We always need as much help as we can get! We’ve been very fortunate in receiving the help of some exceptional, hard-working people. We have on-site accommodation for volunteers – kind of basic but with hot shower, refrigerator, pet cats, movies. There’s a Volunteering page on our website, which includes e-mail addresses of previous volunteers so that an interested person can get the low-down from someone with experience.

Q: Do you have any programs that bring animals to the USA for adoption?

Our Puppy Program is a network of helpers in California who can place just about all the puppies we can send them, so we are always looking for people flying from Guatemala to either LA, San Francisco, or Miami (where we have a friend who will foster and place puppies), who are prepared to take a few puppies with them. We also look for donors to finance the puppies’ expenses, which includes the health certificate and airfare for the animal.

Q: What are the biggest problems you face when helping animals in your community?

Animals are very far down the list of priorities for most people. And there are very many very poor people in Guatemala. There are many children growing up in very basic conditions, lacking proper nutrition, and often missing out on schooling completely. “Why aren’t you helping people?” and “Why aren’t you helping children?” Are questions that we hear a lot. We believe that we are helping people, partly by helping them discover the compassion and empathy inside them, and also by helping to create a healthier environment, with rabies and zoönosis control, and less starving dogs on the street. Getting the spay/neuter message across is also challenging, although once a person understands the idea they immediately become very enthusiastic about it, especially women.

Q: Please share a heartwarming story about a special animal or a situation that you turned around, or a victory for animals in general in your community.

Conina must have been hit by a car seconds before I drove past. I saw this beautiful, young German Shepherd lying in the weeds, and stopped to pick her up. She had a fractured spine and hip. At first she could stand, and walk, but she wanted to RUN, and quickly got frustrated as her hind legs twisted around each other and she fell, again and again. We did what we could for her, but lacking the facilities and resources this wasn’t enough, and gradually she gave up trying to use her legs, and had to be walked in a sling. Boy was she happy when a kind donor in the USA sent her a beautiful, custom-made cart! And then – another miracle – she was adopted by some wonderful people in California. Now she has every attention – a special diet, hydrotherapy sessions, physiotherapy, love and kindness and other dogs to play with. We hear that she is slowly regaining the use of her hind legs. Maybe she’ll never get to run wild and free like her spirit yearns to do, but (I believe) what she has is a lot better than a sad and slow death by the side of the highway.

One of my favourite animal stories-with-a-happy-ending from the last few years at AWARE is that of Risitas, who came to us as a pup of maybe 4 months suffering from mange and with a terrible wound across her face, probably inflicted by machete. We sewed up her wound and it healed quickly, leaving her with a slightly turned up lip – hence her name: Little Smiles in Spanish. Despite her past experiences she was very sweet and loving, and it was not surprising that an Italian volunteer fell in love with her. Cristiana went back to her home in France but could not forget Risitas, and it wasn’t long before she wrote, asking to come back to Guatemala to pick her up. She did, and now Risitas divides her time between her apartment in the fashionable quarter of Paris with strolls in the Bois de Boulogne, and the family palazzio in Italy, with jaunts to Côte d’Azur and trips to the Alps.

Q: Please share any additional information or stories you think might be interesting to our readers.

I could go on and on! Our central project and focus for the future is the construction and development of an on-site Humane Education centre. If we can reach enough young people and give them good information about responsible pet care, and about the proper care of animals in general and of the environment, then we will have made a sustainable improvement in the lives of animals (and people) in Guatemala.

Q: What is the best way for people to donate to your group?

Via PayPal on the Donations page of the AWARE website, or by check mailed to:
AWARE A-371
PO Box 669004
Miami Springs, FL 33266
USA