Don’t be surprised if you spot a group of youngsters going about your locality placing bowls of water on the street or bringing packets of food for the street animals. Going by the moniker of Noah’s Army this group of students and young professionals has taken it upon themselves to make life a little better for the otherwise neglected and abused stray animals. And as part of their summer campaign they’re urging their neighbours and locality security guards to do their bit and set a bowl of fresh water periodically outside their gates to help the poor animals beat the heat.
Founded by Minakshi Shekar, a scriptwriter with an animation company, a couple of months ago, Noah’s Army is now a 20-member strong team from the initial eight member team. The animal lover decided to launch this initiative after she saw the sorry condition of the dogs on her street. “I was the kind of person who’d usually be scared of dogs. But all that changed once I got my own dog two years ago and the way I viewed animals has changed since. Last summer I began setting out a bowl of water and a couple of slices of bread outside my gate for the dogs on my street. What I noticed was that they’d been so mistreated in the past that they’d scurry away at the mere sight of a person, but would return to lap up the water and bread once I’d left,” she says. That got her thinking and she along with a few like-minded friends launched Noah’s Army.
Harsha Dhanvada, co-founder of Noah’s Army, says, “Caring for good breeds and discarding the rest is like caring for movie stars and killing the rest of us. We urge everyone to think about coexistence.”
“We’re not a registered organisation. We’re just a bunch of animal lovers trying to do our bit for the poor neglected creatures. There have been several instances when I’ve called animal organisations to rescue an injured stray only to see that the response time is extremely slow when compared to other cities. This is simply because they’re already functioning beyond their capacity. Which is why we thought we could do something ourselves in addition to their work,” she explains, adding that in the long run they want to be the one-stop shop of adoption, vaccination and medical aid for these animals.
The group recently launched their monthly Doggies Day Out programme to address the lack of public spaces for people with pets. “Most parks in the city don’t allow pets; but it is very important for dogs to interact with other dogs. So Doggies Day Out will provide pet owners the opportunity to get their pets to a common area and have a sort of play date for them. The one we had last Sunday attracted over 250 participants,” says Minakshi.
Apart from this the group also plans to organise a weekly food drive where volunteers can contribute food items to feed the city’s strays. They are also working towards tying up with vets in the city to help treat injured or ill animals as and when the need arises.
“I fortunately, live in an animal friendly neighbourhood. But we have our volunteers reporting that in some neighbourhoods residents are not too happy about our endeavours since they say it attracts more strays. In such areas we try and move our feeding bowl and water bowl to the corner of the street to limit the number of strays entering the locality. We just have to find a way around to carry on our work,” says Minakshi.
