In 2023, the American Independent Film Festival will donate all ticket proceeds to 3 organizations involved in banning live transport or animal welfare.
ANIMALS INTERNATIONAL
Animals International is the global subsidiary of Animals Australia. From providing emergency disaster grants to investigating the live export trade, our work and collaborations span many countries.
ASOCIAȚIA ARCA – ANIMAL RESCUE AND CARE
We are the Animal Rescue and Care Association, or ARCA for short, a young organization with roots that are not young at all, but very widely distributed.
We are still part of the big VIER PFOTEN/FOUR PAWS family that we represent with pride and a lot of responsibility in Romania and beyond. Some of us have been part of VIER PFOTEN Romania for 17 years.
We have participated in starting the first mass sterilization program for stray animals, we have set up the “Câini pentru Oameni” project, we have succeeded in closing zoos that could not offer adequate conditions, relocating animals to appropriate sanctuaries, we have succeeded in stopping the use of animals in circuses in Romania and we participate in drafting legislation to improve the lives of animals.
We have been running the “Caii sălbatici – Letea” project since 2011, when, together with volunteers, we managed to stop the truck that was taking some of the free horses from the Letea Grind to the slaughterhouse. After rescuing them, we started a programme of correct and ethical management of the horse population in the Danube Delta, through immunocontraceptive vaccination with reversible effect.
Since then, our team has been travelling regularly to Letea, monitoring the horse population, looking after its welfare, doing aerial counts and vaccinating a certain percentage of the horse population with contraception. In the harsh winters, we provide feed for these horses and provide medical care throughout the year.
We have collaborative partnerships with the decision-making authorities in our area of activity (ARBDD, CA Rosetti Local Council, Tulcea Forestry Directorate).
In addition to our flagship project “Caii sălbatici – Letea”, we constantly provide veterinary assistance to horses used for work in disadvantaged areas of Romania. From late spring to late autumn, our doctors, accompanied by farriers, ensure better conditions for hundreds of exploited animals in very poor communities in the country and beyond.
At the same time, we are involved in various animal rescue actions, the latest being the rescue of the Midia ram. Our doctors are specialized in rescue actions, interventions in hard-to-reach areas, providing first aid to wild and domestic animals injured or in distress.
Together with VIER PFOTEN, we have had the opportunity to rescue and treat a huge variety of animals. We have participated in actions in many places around the world, and we list just a few: Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Myanmar, Iraq, Gaza Strip, Ukraine, South Africa, Jordan or Bulgaria.
Our mission is the direct rescue of non-human animals but in the long run we know that education plays a crucial/crucial role in improving their welfare and interaction.
That is why we have shared, and will continue to share, our experience gained in over 20 years of animal rescue and protection.
We run and collaborate in specialised training programmes for institutions (Emergency Inspectorates, Faculties of Veterinary Medicine) and organisations at home and abroad. Thus, we try to improve and harmonize the skills of those who interact directly with animals in a survival situation, aiming at safe rescue for both the animal and the rescuer.
We are concerned and concerned about climate change, we advocate for responsible, sustainable and healthier living.
We want to start information and awareness campaigns on the dangers of humans to nature. We share this Planet with many other species and we have a duty to protect it and take action when our actions, as human beings, have catastrophic consequences for ecosystems and their other inhabitants.
Our motto is: PROTECT WHAT YOU LOVE! We love and respect nature, animals, marine life, the only planet where life has been proven to exist. We also love good people.
For this, we are always ready to learn, to improve, to intervene at any time and to do whatever we can to help.
Among our team members we list Kuki Bărbuceanu, pioneer and trailblazer for over 20 years in the protection and welfare of animals in Romania, Dr. Ovidiu Roșu, specialized in wild animal medicine and extreme rescue interventions (probably the “wildest” doctor we believe our country has) and Dr. Florin Mlagiu, specialized in equine and farm animal medicine.
In addition to these, we collaborate with specialist entities, doctors, veterinary assistants, farriers and dedicated volunteers who care, whenever necessary.
BRUNO SHELTER ASSOCIATION
Bruno Shelter is a non-governmental animal welfare organization that came into being in 2013. After the authorities began euthanizing human dogs in the wake of a national tragedy, without taking into account the factor of unsterilized dogs in the homeland’s households, we decided to coalesce into an organization that aims to spay and neuter dogs and cats with or without owners and to house the dogs in a friendly shelter until they find their (human) soulmate. Bruno is the first dog that Eli Vla rescued from Drumul Taberei, together with Mihai Georgescu, the founders of the association. Mihai Dragolea joined them in 2019 and today we manage to do sterilization campaigns in Giurgiu county and to house abandoned animals. We believe that the only solution to the problem of dogs is their sterilization, especially those in rural households and areas with urban houses.