Give it back... Lanta Animal Welfare

About a month or so ago I read a tweet introducing a travel blogging initiative called "Travel Bloggers Give Back". A little investigation showed that it originated from Green Global Travel, a US based blogging team who have a healthy attitude and conscience towards sustainable travel - something I try to work on with every step I take, every place I stay in and every foreign country I visit. Though I considered it bold at that stage to declare myself a travel blogger what with only a couple of handfulls of highly valued loyal readers, I announced my interest and support for this initiative.

And here is my blog post about a special cause and how I am giving back this Christmas.

Koh Lanta was our first stop on a six week tour of Thailand that is close to completion. One of the larger Thai islands in the Andaman Sea it is a well developed but still authentic and unaffected place to live, travel and tour around. That is for us humans. One of the things we noticed about Koh Lanta and have continued to notice as we have taken in other Thai destinations is that domestic animals such as cats and dogs often become strays, certainly more often than perhaps in our "home" nations.My travelling partner and boyfriend NewMan and I are not animal- people. Though he grew up with pet dogs in the family neither of us have owned, cared for or even looked after an animal as adults, yet we are not animal haters and it saddened both of us to see stray dogs and cats roaming the streets and beaches looking for food or just some affection. Though we didn't see any sick animals we are aware that strays are often malnourished and carry diseases that they could easily be vaccinated against.

So when we heard that there was a non-profit organisation based on the island which cared for these animals and did all it could to neuter and rehouse the animals we were intrigued and encouraged.

Lanta Animal Welfare was founded by Californian born and one time Norway resident Junie Kovacs who has set up a Thai cookery school and restaurant on Koh Lanta eight years ago. Her story and that of the welfare centre is worth learning about in this beautiful but heart-string-pulling video. from on .

It is more than likely thanks to Lanta Animal Welfare's efforts that the animals we did see were, more often than not, in reasonable health.

I have since found out that visitors to Koh Lanta can visit Lanta Animal Welfare to see the good work in progress, walk a dog or stroke a cat and if only we'd stayed longer on the island we'd have been there like a shot. Instead we will be giving the centre a Christmas present donation and will prioritise a visit when we return to Koh Lanta, which we hope will be sooner rather than later.

In addition to donations (small and large) you can support the centre on Facebook, by buying this special cookery book or should you be lucky enough to be in the area, by signing up for a cookery course at Time for Lime, the profits of which are the major contributor to Lanta Animal Welfare. Alternatively Lanta Animal Welfare offer extremely tempting and competitive long-term volunteering opportunities for vets or animal lovers. Since moving on from Koh Lanta we've seen more stray and unwell animals than we are comfortable with, but likewise we've also seen and heard about other projects doing extraordinary work in these areas and so there is always hope, however there may not always be the funding so I am thankful to Travel Bloggers Give Back and Green Global Travel for giving this one project a voice. You can read other

(P.S. Our four legged friend on the beach in these photos isn't a stray dog but a well loved family pet who lived at one of our favourite beach cafes. During our stay on Koh Lanta we met an ex-pat couple who had adopted a cat from Lanta Animal Welfare and also heard a story of holiday makers adopting from overseas, which is apparently very possible. Maybe when NewMan and I do eventually settle we'll take the next step towards being real animal people!)