Ar Idardo 2021/….
In 2018 Lena Berezina founded the Dogs' Ambulance Ar Idardo club for helping stray dogs, a project that consisted in establishing an animal shelter and providing mobile emergency help for stray dogs and cats across various regions of Georgia.
Lena moved from Russia to Georgia 8 years ago. In Tbilisi she opened a touristic club and whenever she took tourists around Georgia on the road they would always see the catastrophic state that the stray dogs were in; those were walking skeletons that in their search for food would come to busy areas such as transshipment points, gas stations and roadside cafés. During the high season tourists would feed them but in winter those places were usually deserted. Lena would bring dog food along to all of her tours. The thought of building an animal shelter did not occur to her then.
In 2018 Lena was determined to leave Georgia but came across yet another partially bald pup on the beach. She picked him up, took him in and made the decision to stay and create an ambulance for stray dogs.
Lena made a Facebook post about her intention to stay and take care of dogs, and in a month’s time her past tourism clients raised enough money for her to buy a car and a house 20 km away from Tbilisi.
By the summer of 2020 the house was sheltering 70 dogs and 20 cats. Some were successfully adopted but the number of incoming animals was far greater. It was clear that soon the animals would not have enough room within the 600 square meters of the shelter’s territory. Once again Lena called upon the Facebook community. One month later, enough funds were raised for her to purchase 2 hectares of land in Samegrelo, western Georgia. Over the course of the year 2021 the wild hill acquired two roads, electricity, water supply, 1000 square meters of dog kennels and a cat kennel. The construction is still underway as more and more dogs are rescued and taken in. To this day, there are already over 300 dogs in the shelter. It is important to emphasize that the project exists and grows only thanks to private donations.
On her personal Facebook page Lena writes about the shelter’s life every day, which makes the whole story entirely transparent to the supporters of the project. Many of them have admitted that they daily go on Facebook specifically to check the news on the shelter’s residents. Many know the resident dogs and cats by their names.
According to Lena, the word ‘shelter’ does not accurately describe the Dogs’ Ambulance Ar Idardo project; instead, it is a club that specializes in helping stray animals that also operates a shelter. On their website they define their mission as follows: “We take animals in from the streets, provide them with medical treatment, sterilize them, keep them; in the meantime we try to find them new homes; we provide behavioral corrections when needed in order to increase the chances of the animal getting adopted. We facilitate the process of registration of our animals and their transportation abroad. We support individuals who take care of stray dogs and help them with feeding and medical treatment”.
Apart from the daily care routine, Dogs’ Ambulance Ar Idardo has another important mission: to try and change the overall attitude towards pets in the whole region. Lena says that she is fully aware that this is a long process and that “we are unlikely to witness any significant results in our lifetime, but we will definitely make our contribution”.
Novaya Gazeta “My Friend Berezina” — novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/09/27/moi-drug-berezina
Donate to the project:
Paypal dogambulansa@gmail.com
Zelle dogambulansa@gmail.com, recipient Dog Ambulance Foundation-Ar Idardo
Organization card number in TBC bank 4315 7240 0170 6339, Owner: Dogs Ambulance
Account of the organization in GEL in TBC bank GE29TB7276336080100016
Bitcoin (BTC): bc1qelztll2tsz4juw8n6h2t9qh05hmxwvagg79qh6
Metamask wallet for all other cryptocurrencies: 0×7BDAe51A9FE497f560Bae607F4dA05a4161e2ABC
Website dogsland.org