2,500 malnourished donkeys in Tanzania urgently need your help. Despite signs of the rains returning soon, the donkeys do not have enough food as plants are not growing.

Our urgent food appeal is in response to a donkey welfare crisis in the Dodoma region of central Tanzania. Two consecutive years of failing rains have left the region as barren as a desert.

Water points are drying up and becoming scarce. Donkeys are forced to travel longer distances to access water. Although weakened by hunger, they are having to work even harder for their owners in the local communities.

Moko and Apendi urgently need more food

Donkeys like Moko and Apendi urgently need more food. Their owner, Lisa lives in the affected area and our emergency food appeal could be a real lifeline to donkeys like this. Lisa originally had seven donkeys, but five were stolen and skinned overnight as the donkey skin trade takes its grip on donkeys across Africa.

Her two remaining donkeys, Moko and Apendi, now have to carry an enormous burden.

Lisa says: “The donkeys were helping my family by carrying water – fetching and carrying goods, taking them to the market. It has been so hard for us since we lost them. Now we have to work even harder and so do the two donkeys we have left.”

Urgent food appeal for donkeys

We have teamed up with our in-country partner, Tanzania Animal Welfare Society (TAWESO) to fund and deliver an emergency food supply to give vital sustenance to 2,500 donkeys, supporting around 500 families in the community.

The initiative will help donkeys have a chance to survive and there is hope the rains will come soon and plants can start to grow again.

Our teams will distribute nutritious fodder at the water points where donkeys fetch this precious resource. The feed will also be given directly to donkeys at meetings where donkey owners are instructed on better animal welfare, and will be shared among donkeys foraging for meagre pickings in the dusty terrain.