Policy plan/ Beleidsplan 2024-2025

 
 
 
 

Mission and vision in short:
“Improving animal welfare for both wild and domesticated animals in our homeland as well as abroad through organizing, facilitating and veterinary projects.”
 “We want to stimulate and facilitate other people to dedicate their time and knowledge to animal welfare”
We believe that education is the key to animal welfare and to educate you need trust and to trust you need to be part of a community.
 



Current goals and policy 2024-future
10 years after the official startup of Travelling Animal Doctors we still stay true to our starting principals (above). Coming to realize that you can fight animal welfare problems by offering free veterinary help, but probably the most important part of improving animal welfare is education we’ve added this to our mission.
Over the last 2 years we have established a strong presence on the island of Bonaire as well as Belize in the Caribbean.
In 2024-2025 we will continue our help to the island of Bonaire working together with Bonaire Veterinary Center. Next to that we will start an TNRc program focusing on the growing (stray-)cat population on the island. Our goal for this program is (next to humanely control the population) to gain trust on the island for developing more TNR programs (dogs).
 
 
 
Future:
Our goal is to spread our mission across the island of the Caribbean. Ther are many of the smaller (and larger) island where animal welfare is at stake due to social/financial reasons. There is also a few islands where the unique flora and fauna of the areas are at risk because of domestic-wildlife interaction. Cooperating more with existing non-profit organizations as well as starting new projects there where needed. Using Bonaire as our basis we want to bundle our resources to grow a more solid and sustainable presence for ongoing support.
 
We want to grow our team. Keeping an eye on the personal side note of the board during the initial foundation: “We want to stimulate and facilitate other people to dedicate their time and knowledge to animal welfare” We want TAD to become a self-functioning pool of animal welfare volunteers, where inspiration, knowledge, dedication and love for animals are the pillars and the volunteers are the kindle to create possibilities for veterinary professionals and animal lovers to help those who need it the most.
 
 
 
How (strength and weaknesses):
In the last 10 years we organized and collaborated on a large number of campaigns all over world: our team has gaining experience in a large variety of countries, cultures and climates, each with different challenges.
The Caribbean is a mix of it all: each island is different. With our ongoing precede on Bonaire (Dutch Caribbean) we have the ability to bundle and organize our medical resources in a very efficient way. Most of the islands have direct routes to either the USA or Europa, and with the likable climate it’s a preferred location for volunteers.
 
The challenges are still:
-our financial situation: medical prices are going up in vast speed and commercials clinics are donating less materials (either for sustainable reasons or responsibly regulations).
-finding long term volunteers: we see an increase of volunteers willing to help short term (1-2 weeks) and a decrease for long term projects (1-3months).
We are tackling these challenges by focusing more on our core team of dedicated volunteers but we will need to take a step forward in finding new volunteers.
 
Steps:
We will establish a stronger connection with a variety of non-profits on islands such as (but not specific or limited to) Curacao, Belize and Saba and it is here that we will start focusing on. Starting closest by with Curacao and Belize. We will do this by sharing knowledge, resources and possibly volunteers.
In the meantime, we wills start building our supplies depot in Bonaire, from where we can then send out supplies to areas needed.
From there we will start the conversation on needs-do’s and don’ts on the island, hopefully leading to a small pilot campaign in 2025. Connection with local communities, NGO’s and governments is essential.
 
In order to continue our mission, the next 5+ years we will need to grow our team. To arrange this, we will attract more back-office volunteers of all kinds of animal-backgrounds and different areas globally to work together. We will reach out to our pool of active volunteers as well as followers online.
 
Finances:
As a foundation, we do not have a profit motive. The main source of income is fundraising through (online) campaigns, private fundraising and grant applications. The majority our our fundraising is project-based: goal for the raised money will be communicated directly with the sponsors per project. In general funds are used to cover:
- purchase of medication and other medical needs;
--educational materials;
- transportation fees;
-allowances for local support;
-other needs essential for completing campaign goals.