I’m very pleased to bring you an update from Andy, our CEO, about the proposed redevelopment of the Sanctuary. You may remember that last autumn, we were well on our way to finding a new site to move to, but sadly the events in Israel put this plan on hold.
Andy and the Trustees have been discussing the best course of action, so today I can bring you an update. We would like to thank you for your patience during the last year or so since we ran our Sanctuary appeal, and we hope you’ll agree the donkeys will now benefit from an improved home.
This can’t come too soon as Israel has had very heavy rain during the last month, which has resulted in seasonal flooding at the Sanctuary. Unfortunately this time the rain damaged our hay supply, which means we will have to replace it to ensure we can provide fresh, clean hay to all our donkey residents.
An update from our CEO, Andy
We have been at the current site for over 20 years and it has served us well. But we were in danger of outgrowing it, as we planned to bring unwanted and abandoned donkeys over to Israel from the West Bank.
We started to look at how we could either expand our existing site or move to a new location with more land to house a bigger herd. Eventually we were informed it would not be possible to bring in donkeys or horses from the West Bank to Israel.
We urgently needed to find more space for our donkeys in the West Bank, so with your support we opened a new rescue centre in Arrana at the end of last year – and I can’t thank you enough for all your help in funding this new rescue centre.
So we are now looking to go ahead with plans to renew quite a lot of the infrastructure at the Sanctuary’s current site – we have already put in new drains to take the water away from the paddock but this work needs to continue, especially as Israel now experiences very rainy, wet weather during the winter months.
We will also build specific areas for the hospital and isolation areas so we can prevent the spread of disease when new arrivals come in.
During the winter, the donkeys shelter in massive poly tunnels which protect them from the rain and cold winds. These are old and some need replacing, so your donations will help us to do this. We will of course keep you updated on the redevelopment.
Thank you once again to all our supporters for helping to make this work possible.
Dusty has sent over an update from the Sanctuary – some wonderful videos and photos.
The donkeys are spending more time under cover at the moment, due to the heavy rain Israel has been experiencing over the last month. Here’s Dusty’s update showing some of your favourite donkeys – including lovely Burnie.
Thank you!
We hope this update has helped to show you how your donations are helping donkeys in desperate need – thank you for your support!
If you’d like to read previous updates of our work, please click here.
Can you help us?
Our hay store area fell victim to the recent heavy rain! The area flooded and spoiled some of the hay that provides vital feed to our donkeys. Will you give £3 to help us replace our store with fresh, dry hay? Thank you!
