We at “Global” know a good thing when we see it. We are proud to present to you Yangon Animal Shelter (YAS) which has recently registered as an official NGO. Current leaders of YAS are Ms. Just (Supervisor/Founder), Chris Minn (President) Thondari Win (Fundraising Leader) and Thomas Toh (leading member). They and others worked throughout last summer to establish a new system, procedure and protocol to run YAS 2018-2019. To start, they looked at improving YAS’s financial, design, advertising and fundraising activity departments. Making these departments work together results in greater public awareness, better marketing results and of course more income for YAS to achieve its objectives. In addition, they have exerted great effort to gain recognition; this hard work prompted Dr. Hedger to describe YAS as a “mascot for service learning groups in ISY.” Thondari mentioned that they have also relied on advertising as well as setting up a stall in Yangon Zay in People’s Park. It is hoped that this energy will encourage more people to join and donate besides creating awareness.
Recently, YAS is working on a collaboration with an established, professional videographer and photographer based in Myanmar, Steven (Sai Aung Hpone Myat). They are now working closely together on a documentary focusing on stray dogs in Yangon, and how YAS has been able to provide a more humane solution to improve the situation instead of having to poison the dogs. YAS’s long term goal is to reduce the number of stray dogs in Yangon. Their methods are running shelters and educating the community to adopt the dogs. The documentary will contain disturbing images of poisoned dogs and the potential harm which could impact human society.
This project is expected to be released in August 2019. They are confident that this documentary will certainly help in public education and creating greater social awareness. We certainly should support YAS to spearhead this service learning and social responsibility.
