AWOL - Dr Mohammed's Report
The following is Dr Mohammed's report of March 2010 and we wanted to share his feelings with you, our supporters.
Arabic is his first language but for us he writes his reports in English and these are his words.
The Feelings of the People of the Villages towards AWOL
 Why AWOL choose El Marise and Armant to be important places for helping the animals is that they are considered as busy market areas where a lot of poor people work their animals and most of these people are young children that give us the chance to help the animal firstly and secondly start education program to change the culture and behaviour of these children towards the animals.
How we started in El Marise and Armant?
With a small car and only two person we stop in a dirty place where most of worker donkey pass by this place.
Really we stop in these places and do not care about the dirt around us as it is busy to watch the worker animals and notice any problem in these animals and changing all chain with AWOL head collars and also attaching reflective strip on carts back.
By the time the people understand our job and all are collected around us and we start work hard from early morning till all problems are solved also a lot of people from another neighbouring area ask us when you come back so we keep our promise and come every two days.
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Dogs here are lovely and are lucky to have AWOL’s collars and treatment to all problems. Such as tick infestations, mange and lameness due to hitting from non-respective people and car accidents.
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After 2 months in our new area of Armant we manage to solve a lot of chronic problems but dealt firstly with the acute ones.
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By this time we have made friends of lots of donkey owners and by being friendly it allows us to teach them how they can keep their animals healthy.
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People find by AWOL service that their donkeys start to be bigger and are much stronger.
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Also the cards that AWOL leaves that have Dr Mohammed's number on them manage the people to let AWOL know of emergency cases so AWOL can go directly to these cases in any place in our area.
What about peoples feeling towards AWOL
In the beginning some of the El Marise people say that they did not trust us as they thought that we would kill their animals.
Over time they found our small team works seriously and spends a lot of time under the sun caring for their donkeys, dogs, horses and a few cats.
They come and we sort out a lot of problems. The health of their animals start to improve and they are more strong so they can work more and they can earn more money for their family.
Now all the people trust on us and prefer us because we care with cases that have problems and follow these cases until completely recovered by taking the address of owner and every two or three days we can visit the animals provided with treatment and give instructions to the owners.
Someone say to me why you work all this serious work although there is no one give you money?
I told him AWOL comes here to help the animals and educate the owners with the art of dealing towards these valuable animals and AWOL will not stop forever. So he reply we are so happy with this charity as in the past we lost a lot of animals.
People become friends for us so in any road we cross they call us and wave for us and we stop asking if he has any problem
but he is now often only happy with us and with his donkey that has become more strong.
Children also become so friendly for AWOL so they help us so much and they cooperate with other owners during treatment by holding their animals and we benefit from this friendship by being able to educate them and correct a lot of mistakes that they are doing towards their animals.
Now as soon as we expanded to Armant all people come with their donkey to sort out any problem.
AWOL is Mobile
AWOL does not concentrate its work in one place as AWOL's interest is in varying and travelling to discover the animals that suffer. While we are mobile with our car we are stopped by someone for a problem and we sort out these problems and I ask him do you think the charity actually help the animal and are you happy about this charity.
He said AWOL actually helps and succeeds because if it didn't we will not stop you to help our animal.
Also I remember this lady that have a weak donkey and we stop to help her animal. Firstly she say no because you kill him so I make her understand that AWOL doesn't kill donkeys and we will do all requirements for this donkey.
After time we met this lady again as she stopped us asking for more injections as my donkey more improvement and so I smile and remember what her reaction was before.
How the poor people feel towards AWOL
A lot of people understand only AWOL is charity for animal care and welfare but in addition to this role AWOL not forget her role towards the community where she work and change the culture toward animals.
The role of AWOL towards the people in El Marise and Armant area can be explained in that AWOL search about the poor people and family and she visit them from time to time helping them to care for their animals health, making strong friends with these families and AWOL try to decrease the feeling of poorness and encourage them to challenge.
In Marise we have a poor family that consists of father who has no job and mother who is a housewife and 6 girls and only one boy. One of these girls has phlebitides, elephant disease or Pilaria disease that describe one big (oedematous) leg look like elephant leg. This lady has only one boy (Kareem, 7) and one girls (Malk, 1) and we call the house as Malk house.
I speak with this man (the father I mean) he speak to me and said that because we are a very poor family the community around us and a lot of people ignore us and there is no one visit us because we are poor but after your visit (AWOL team) and you stop beside my house I become famous and a lot of people start to know me and respect me and ask me when they will come back. During this dialogue I notice tears is come off from the man because he is very happy and the man thank us so much.
Also AWOL make strong friendly relationship between the children of these poor families because the children are the future and we provide them with all needs of education like pens, books, pencils, clothes and colouring pens to develop their hobbies and encourage them to insist to complete their education and not affect by the poorness. Also give them games that develop their thinking so they can benefit from their spare time.
Also in Marise AWOL discover a lady who live alone after her husband dead and all her three girls were married and left. The house only has the lady. AWOL regulate visits for this lady from time to time also this lady has a dog that guards her during the night from thieves. This lady was very happy from our visit because when we are stop to see her dog a lot of people is come and collected around the house and this lady feel happy because the ignorance of the community because of AWOL also we bring food for her dog. That dog become so friend for us.
AWOL start and will not stop also it will increase her effort to save these communities in two ways, animal care first and helping the poor families specially the children second.
Finally we are so happy with what we do but we will achieve much more.
Dr Mohammed
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