Mitrataa Foundation - Projects

We have been fortunate enough to meet with one of the most inspiring people who has lived in Kathmandu for many years, Jan Salter. In 2004, Jan established the KAT Centre to deal with the increasing problem of street dogs in the city. More details of KAT can be found at their website - http://www.katcentre.org.np.

Together with Jan we explored the idea of establishing a Pets as Therapy program in Kathmandu and in April 2008 the first program was run. You can read all about the amazing day we had taking two of the dogs from KAT to visit the children at the Bal Mandir orphanage on our blog. Since then two more visits have been made, each one more successful than the one before, and we have really noticed the change in many of the kids. An initial fear of dogs has now been replaced with absolute joy at the arrival of their furry new best friends! More blog entries about the program can be accessed by clicking here.

We feel this program provides a great opportunity for many of the street dogs rescued and rehabilitated by KAT as well as potentially enhancing the lives of the many hundreds of children in Kathmandu's hospitals and orphanages. Numerous studies have shown that time spent with animals leads to improved feelings of well-being and is particularly helpful in cases of disability and serious illness.

Current Status

We are presently preparing the materials for a training course for the staff at KAT to enable them to identify and train appropriate dogs on an ongoing basis.
We are also preparing materials from the recipient side to enable other orphanages, hospitals and schools to introduce the program.

How YOU Can Help

We are looking for volunteers in Kathmandu to continue taking the dogs from KAT to Bal Mandir on a monthly basis so please get in touch if you can help by emailing adam@mitrataa.org.
If you have experience in similar types of programs we would love to hear from you whether just to share ideas and suggestions or even to help with preparing materials or the ongoing management of the program.