Based in Harare, the team travel throughout Zimbabwe to deliver veterinary pop-up clinics to rural communities.
Once set up, these clinics provide dog sterilisations and rabies vaccinations. In the Honde Valley they vaccinated 2505 dogs over six days, plus surgical sterilisation of 366 dogs. People bring their animals from far and wide, ferrying dogs on buses and in bicycle drawn trailers. One man travelled 22 km on foot to reach their clinic in the Honde Valley area, showing just how needed these services are.
Beitbridge, on the South African border, was selected for a recent clinic in part because of an increase in concern about stray dogs, dog bites and the risk they pose to children travelling to school. Here the team sterilised 68 dogs, 2 cats and vaccinated 271 dogs against rabies.
VAWZ is an excellent example of a relatively small, local organisation delivering on-the-ground services urgently needed by rural African communities to address rabies in the dog population.
(Excerpt from nomination)
