Today, we're going to talk to you about our experiences of moving the world to protect dogs, and this is from a veterinarian point of view. So, like Anthony was saying, roaming bos are considered a problem for a variety of reasons, including aggression towards humans, disease transmissions, rabies is one of them, but there are certainly many others. Environmental contamination from faeces or from ripping apart garbage bags, and then of course there's also the preoccupation of the animals that live on the streets and their compromised animal welfare.
The misconception that culling dogs will eliminate these issues and that the problem is that there are too many dogs remains widespread. This is an old photograph of mass culling of dogs in in in Indonesia to control rabies. Now I will clarify that the government has stopped doing this and this is an old photograph.
So, to combat this misconception, World Animal Protection advocates for the integration of humane dog population management or DPM into government programmes around the world. All part in reducing conflicts between dogs and the communities they live in in order to achieve a harmonious coexistence between them. Our experience in world animal protection has taught us that no programme is the same, that although there are certainly components to dog population management, which we will see in a few more slides, .
For the social, cultural, and geographical realities must be taken into consideration in creating tailor-made programmes that deal with the root causes of dog problems in different places. It has also taught us that veterinarians are key stakeholders in these programmes, both those that are working for the government or privately. So today, we're gonna put forward our key learnings as an organisation from a veterinarian's point of view for work that we've done over the past 10 years in Brazil, Costa Rica, China, Kenya, Romania, Serbia, Zanzibar, and the Greater Ocean Pacific.
And these key learnings are that most street dogs are actually owned. The knowledge of dog numbers and dynamics is very essential when you want to undertake a programme. A multi-stakeholder committee is vital in any dog population programme, and that means stakeholders outside the veterinary fraternity also.
Number 4, there is no singular recipe for a DPM programme, whether at a geographical state, nationally, or continental. Non-formal community education programmes are a basis for transformation. And when resources are limited, sterilisation should be targeted.
Investing in monitoring and evaluation of programmes is necessary. We will look at each of these learnings individually. So our first point is that most street dogs are owned.
And as we said, automatically when most people see a dog wandering in a street or a town, most people assume that it is a stray. But we have found out from the work that we have done that perhaps in most Western urban cities, it can be correctly assumed that it is a true stray. But in developing countries, the story is slightly different.
Here we have what we have, what we classify as one, free roamers, which are owned dogs that have the freedom to socialise. And then we have community dogs. These are dogs that are not owned by any singular person.
But I accepted loosely by several persons within a village or an elder in that area. In our work in Romania, we found that most dogs are true strays. And what happens is that most of these dogs were once owned.
They either became too big or too expensive or too undesirable to maintain. Therefore, they are put on the streets. But due to the ability of finding feeding, they're able to produce the survival of pups low, this enabling a maintained population.
In Sierra Leone, where we work, we have a different situation in Freetown, where we actually have a combination of both populations. We have free roamers, and then we have two strays. The two strays have come from a true combination.
One, dogs abandoned during the Civil War, and secondly, most recently, dogs that were unfortunately abandoned during the Ebola crisis. And these dogs have formed a stable population. The other population are the free roamers.
But due to the housing system where most houses do not have fencing or compounds, the dogs are owned but are free to roam. This is true for most informal settlements in low-income countries, in developing countries, in the urban areas. Now, in Kenya, we have a rural setting in Makweni County, which is a farm setting.
So most fences are usually green, which means dogs can come in and out through the fences. And in such times, the dogs are not enclosed in runs or have chain runs on them. Therefore, during certain times of the day, you'll find these dogs leave the compound and tend to wander.
And especially if it's near town centre, you'll find most of these dogs around the garbage, scavenging for an extra sack or two. Or later on, you actually find them going to cafes where due to availability of food either by scraps or where most people tend to freely give them or throw them food. And that causes them to keep within the towns.
And if you ask persons within the town, they'll actually point you to the owner, give you the name or even show the compound these dogs come from. A difference, but almost similar is a study in Costa Rica where it found 18% of all dogs, owned dogs are allowed to roam freely without supervision. That combined with the fact that almost 70% of them have no identity.
So this is either tags or colours. Makes when you look and walk around a false perception of a stray dog population, so you can actually overestimate it due to these free roamers. And the final type of dog we say is a community dog.
This is mostly found in rural areas in small villages and rural towns. These dogs have no particular owner, but you will actually notice that there's a psychological attachment to people within this community. And these people tend to ensure that these animals are fed.
They find medical care when they're sick. And when you ask people, why do you encourage this? And they most of them will say it's because these dogs give a form of friendship and protection services in the area in general.
OK. So, #2, knowledge of the dog dynamics and numbers is absolutely essential. So, Once you know how many roaming dogs you have, you have an idea of the magnitude of the issue.
You can evaluate the need for an intervention, and this is where you compare dog counts in different areas and maybe try to see if there's a specific area that has way more density of dogs than others. You can plan an intervention, and knowing the dynamics and behaviour of dogs and people will allow you to intervene in root causes. And you can also evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention by measuring along the project and definitely doing a some baseline counts to know how many dogs you're starting with.
When you know the dog dynamics and human behaviour, you can answer the questions, where do the dogs come from? In almost all parts of the world, as Emily was saying, most dogs are owned, even if it is an informal ownership or dogs that are communitary. Therefore, changing human behaviour is absolutely necessary in any intervention.
Also, when you know the number of dogs, you can assure that you are vaccinating the 70% you need to control canine rabies. I was in a meeting last year, the RIPA meeting, which is the meeting of all of the rabies directors in Latin America, and it's very interesting because some of the smaller countries or the islands from the Caribbean, they were saying that they vaccinate 80 or 90% of the dog population, but they still have rabies. When we asked them, well, How do you know, how can you be sure that you're vaccinating, that percentage of dogs?
Have you ever done a dog count? And their answer was no. So it's, it's really strange that they say that they're vaccinating, but if you don't know how many dogs you have, then how can you be sure that you're really vaccinating?
That percentage of dogs. So it's, it's either that or their vaccines aren't working. So this is really important, especially in this, in, in the countries that still have rabies, to know the exact numbers that you're dealing with.
We have a specific document and I, I recognise that this is in Spanish, but it is also in English. It's called surveying the roaming dog population. This document tells you how to do dog counts in any part of the world with very low cost and it is a fantastic way.
Get a good baseline of how many dogs you're starting with and gives you an idea of what surveys to, what communicating surveys to do so that you can get information on the behaviour of people and how that impacts the dynamics of the dogs. So, our third point is that a multi-stakeholder committee is vital for any dog population management. To succeed, there has been an engagement of major government machinery and ministries responsible.
You'll see this in a later slide. For any rabies elimination and dog population programme to be successful, it is critical to generate buy-in from the full cross section of stakeholders and engage them from the participatory planning. From the very beginning of programme development.
It also key is to achieving ownership at the local level. When you're generating data so that this data that you're generating is owned and trusted by the beneficiaries. Lastly, it has been shown that improving awareness of stakeholders across the board about the disease or the solution you're looking for to mitigate it is critical and important for any success.
Now talk from some of our examples. In Zanzibar, we had a canine rabies elimination project, which we started by undertaking planning discussions with key stakeholders. These covered the Department of Vets.
The Department of Public Health and Human Medicine, the Ministry of Local Government, which was a regional administration to develop an integrated approach across the entire board within the government. A baseline dog survey was undertaken, a knowledge attitude and perception survey, and a needs assessment for the rabies control elimination programme. This provided an understanding of what the stakeholders wanted and how that they could be engaged in the project delivery.
In Costa Rica, a small committee was created by international NGOs, the central government and National Animal Health Services. This led to the creation of national programme to train municipalities on specifically dog population management issues. The outcomes from most of our programmes has shown that in countries where resources are limited, and especially say government level and the veterinary level, an integrated multi-sectoral approach that means bringing other people from outside into the planning and delivering of these zoonotic public health programmes can bridge what we see as presumed gaps, especially where both public and private partnership is enhanced within the veterinary sector.
The programme also demonstrated the full need of engagement with the beneficiaries, who are the dog owners at a very early stage in programme planning to ensure resources are focused and delivered where there is maximum impact. In this slide, I'll put up the main government stakeholders, and we have some here where in some countries we overlook, especially sanitation departments, but Want, if you want to keep dogs out of towns and cities, you have to make sure there's no running water and no open food spaces like garbage. Therefore, that's apart from sanitation department.
Apart from that, we have the Ministry of Tourism who we overlook. Yet in most areas, they're the biggest complainants of stray dogs when it comes to their tourists. So this is an opportunity for them to come in and put the CSR and help within the programme.
We have a wider fraternity, which is international, local community, and institutions. And last but not least, is one, we as veterinary fraternity and even country level, we overlook, which is radio, TV, social media, community media and print, who actually are a breakthrough in communicating messages. OK.
Number 4, there is no singular recipe for a dog population management programme. We have been repeating that for a while, and the reason is all dog population management programmes will vary according to the region in question and its reality. However, I will say there are agreed upon components of any dog population management programme.
In World Animal Protection, we use 7 of those. These are education, primary dog healthcare, such as reproduction control, vaccination and parasite treatment. We have identification and registration, legislation, management of holding facilities and rehoming centres, then controlling access to resources, which is what Emily was saying that you need to control the garbage and who picks it up and that sort of thing.
And then also humane euthanasia for very specific cases of dog suffering, which obviously will, a veterinarian will need to be in charge of making that decision and carrying that out. What varies from programme to programme is the number of components that are chosen to be carried out and the resources that are allotted to each one and also the way in which the multi-stakeholder committee decides to implement it. This is why dog counts and studies on dog dynamics and human behaviour are so important.
Also, knowing that . Also knowing that we, we can decide what components are best to focus on because you don't need to carry out all of them to control the dog population. As a specific example, in the state of Puebla, Mexico, there are vaccination and sterilisation campaigns.
However, the geography varies within the state, making some cities very busy and populated and others very remote and hard to access. Therefore, in the busy cities, vaccination stations or sterilisation stations are set up every few kilometres, and people must bring their dogs. I've seen people bringing their dogs with leashes on bicycles, in wheelbarrows.
I've seen puppies in in boxes. It's actually really interesting and creative the ways in which people find a way to bring their dogs in. But for those hard to reach reconduct places, vaccination campaigns are taken there in mobile clinics, such as a photograph of this mobile clinic that was used in Haiti after the earthquake of 2010.
On the right, in Zanzibar, we had a cultural and religious combination. Traditionally, the locals have always kept dogs on farms because they are vital in keeping wild pigs and various primate species from destroying the farm crops before and during harvest. At the same time, 99% of Zanzibar are Muslim, according to which the dog is classified as haram or unclean.
At the beginning we had a hard time pacing up the programme until the local partners mentioned that maybe we should try working with the imams who the people really respected. An imam is an Islamic religious leader. The imams agreed to help out and did research with the Quran looking for specific scriptures that related to the dog and the health recommendations of cleansing wounds after being bitten by dogs.
They used specific passages that talked about how a person should do a cleansing ritual to make sure to get the saliva off your body, and related them to prescribed modern methodology in wound treatment and rabies prevention. This was actually what turned the tide of the programme. Now we come to our 5th point, which is non-formal community education programmes are best are the basis of transformation.
From a non-governmental organisation perspective, there are two ways of educating people on responsible pet ownership. Either formal animal welfare education in programmes in schools, or you can invest in local community centred solutions. As an organisation, we've worked with many years and implemented formal animal welfare programmes in several countries.
And this is amazing because children land values and they take them at home and they share with the rest of the family and they keep them for life. They learn respect for basic respect and basic dog and cat care in school. The only problem is that investing and developing formal education, which is definitely logical, is hard to achieve and it has a long, steep investment curve initially and can take years to achieve, but then the cost and execution after that are taken up by the system.
Informal community education is more viable. However, it requires sponsorship or patronage within the community to maintain sustainability. Costs definitely are much lower depending on the size of the community, and changes are actually evident and more fast and observable in the short term.
However, When an organisation that is leaving and has set up these initiative leaves, we, they run a risk of losing impact. And if a stability has not been set by the time they leave. The difficult part of these initiatives is to make them sustainable and integrate them into the behaviour and culture of communities.
So as you can see, both forms of education have both pros. And cons In our 40s, you can see one in kids in Romania using animals at animal shelter to learn how to interact with animals. And the other we see Zanzibar where the canine police force were actually going around schools with their dogs to help children understand dog behaviour.
So, from my experience in local and community centred education, it's absolutely necessary when wanting to see transformation and these experiences can be used as pilots to promote formal education on animal welfare. For informal programmes, there should be a collaborative approach. With local leadership, integration of varied stakeholders.
There's a link between how animal welfare can have positive impact on other areas such as public health, respect and values for life, as well as derailing young people from problematic habits. And this should be given an importance in buying. Also, there is an importance of social public positive experiences for families.
Number 6, when resources are limited, sterilisation should be targeted. So in situations where sterilisation is an immediate need, such as when there are many free roaming dogs or community dogs, care should be taken to target sterilisation to a specific groups of dogs in order to reach the highest cost benefit. Our experience in Brazil has shown us that it is more effective to spay females.
Between 1 to 7 years of age. This is because obviously they are in reproductive capacity. Other things to take into consideration are the possibilities of those females to roam without supervision and potentially the economic social status of the owners of those animals.
The lower the status, the higher the possibility that those dogs will be allowed to roam. So, it is important to prioritise 1 to 7 year old female dogs from low-income families that are allowed to roam in a country with similar characteristics to those in Brazil. We are not in any way saying that sterilisation needs to exist in all dog population management programmes.
As we mentioned before, there is no singular recipe that applies to all situations. In fact, in the in the Netherlands, there is a low sterilisation rate, but there are no street dogs. The reason is that there is good legislation, identification, registration, and education on responsible pet ownership.
I even have an interesting anecdote of a story that I heard in a rabies, . Conference and this man was saying that he had visited the Inuits in the north of Canada, and he noticed that in that specific region, there were only 7 adult dogs. He asked the people if there were any puppies, and they answered, we haven't had puppies in years.
A bunch of white ladies came to visit us many years ago. They did something to our dogs, and after that, there have been no puppies. The older dogs have been dying off, and we are left with 7.
So, and these are actually work dogs. So this is the reason why we need to understand dog dynamics. If there is no movement of dogs from one region to the next, as in the case of the Inuits that I mentioned, there is no need to sterilise everything.
It is exactly the opposite with places that have a lot of migration of dogs inside and out of the region. Even if you sterilise 100% of the dogs, there would still be unsterilized dogs coming in and sterilised dogs going out. Last but not least, we have investing in monitoring and evaluation in programmes.
Wider protection, before when it was known as Whisper or World Social Protection Animals, had a rabies programme in Asia Pacific and Zanzibar called the Red Colar. This programme had its successes as well as its learning. At the end of the 10 year programme, we did a final evaluation that showed specific issues that we could have avoided with monitoring and evaluation tools and step-wise evaluations.
We learned that at the beginning of the programmes, we have to undertake a CAP survey. So as to know the true knowledge level of the population you will work in, the attitude to rabies and dogs, and what their true need is, perception to understand the cultural, psychological, and religious norms of your partner population. A dog senses a baseline survey is to give you knowledge of dog population numbers and dynamics.
This will enable baseline data and indicators to monitor progress along your programme. It also allows educated project planning specific to your situation. This tends to strengthen ownership from the beginning, from your human population partners, i.e.
The dog owners. The next step should be to set prearranged minor evaluations along the timeline of your project. These are to allow you to know if you're indeed actually progressing, meeting your indicators, and more importantly, allow adjustment and directional change where needed.
These evaluations need to be shared with your partners, both the top level at government and non-governmental organisation, and the local human population partner, the dog owners to maintain their ownership because the program's success will require the ownership. For it's for its sustainability upon. Your exits.
And at this point, I'd like to thank you for giving us this time to speak to you and hand it over to you, Melania. Thank you, everybody, and thank you to the webinar that for the invitation. And I believe that we have a few minutes for questions, right?
That's great, thanks Melania, thanks, Emily. That's so interesting and it was fascinating that insight for the Inuits, you know, somebody came along and just kind of affected their livelihood because, Actually, the last point you made was the sterilisation point. It's so important to go in and kind of see the situation rather than just blindly say we'll neuter your dogs, and that will sort the problem out as, you know, in that case it actually caused a problem, didn't it?
Exactly, exactly, which is why I think that these baseline surveys, and knowing how many dogs you have and, and how they move around and what their behaviours are is so important for any community that we work with so that you definitely make the correct recipe for them and not think that there's a specific recipe for everybody. Exactly, and You know, that farm, it's so important that they have a dog on the farm, as we did, you know, in England with sheep dogs, they were there first of all, you know, to protect against wolves, etc. Etc.
So they were, they were guard dogs for the, for the flock in the same, in the same way that, these dogs are, you know, to protect against the wild pigs and the, the primates and so on. So really fascinating, really enjoyed that. Laura's saying out of interest, are there any challenges with regards to respective information imparted when veterinary staff are either male or female?
So I think, and Laura, maybe if you need to just confirm that if I've got the wrong end of the stick, do you find You know, as, as a woman, if you're going into a situation which is perhaps, you know, more where the, the position of women, you know, is, is not as, lauded as it as it is in the west, you know, it's difficult for your advice to be taken because you're. Yeah, I, I think absolutely. Emily, I think can certainly talk about this as well, .
I've experienced that as a veterinarian working in many of, in many Latin American countries, and it seems like if I say something or a man veterinarian says something, it doesn't matter what I say, right? So it, it's, you have to go with a very, what, what I've noticed and what has worked for me is that I need to go in with an attitude of very, very unassuming, very non, I forgot the word in English, exactly, very non-confrontational, just some someone that is, is not going to . Do, do a lot of, have, you know, create a lot of problems.
They actually see me as, oh, then, you know, the nice veterinarian. Yeah, we, you know, she's she's not a problem. And I've seen that that actually works in some places better than others, which really irritates me, but I, I'm sure Emily might have some anecdotes about that.
On my point of view, it works on two different perspectives. I personally, I worked in South Sudan, and you know, that's a very highly paternal society. And being a female, yes, the first thing they had a female vet and the question mark is, can be a vet?
But it actually turned around because it actually picked their curiosity to see can this actually woman do what she says she can do. And that curiosity playing on it action opened them up to actually see and understand and hear. And even where I have worked mostly in sub-Saharan countries, yes, they may look and say, you're a woman, but you have an advantage.
Because you pick up that curiosity, and they want to see whether you can actually do what you have to do. And the thing is not to go against their paternity on their paternal side, but to try and work around it. And you can actually come out successful.
But if you're the type of woman who sees, oh, these are males, they're challenging and you challenge them back, then I will completely Put a wall. So the thing is, you have to just use your wisdom on how with the situation, you can work around it. In other places, we have very maternal societies.
So you're coming in as a vet, a woman as a vet, she's made it. That just opens doors for you and things just move. So it depends on the social cultural.
I can say in sub-Sahara, where exactly you're going. I, I would agree with that. I think that I had very good experiences working with teachers when we were doing educational programmes.
For example, in, the one that comes to mind is when we were working at in Peru with, the, the mothers of children from schools, and these children have were being bitten by dogs and so we were taking in some information to them on dog bite. Prevention and they were very open to have a woman speak to them. In fact, I think that they were more open than it would have been a man because they're more comfortable and they're more likely to speak if it's a woman rather than a man.
So it, it has its, it has its pros and cons. I think that you just need to know how to use it. Depends on the swings and roundabouts, pros and cons, yeah, no, it's, that's really interesting as well.
Just while we're doing this, I think a couple of points I'd like to make. Obviously, you know, if people want to get in touch with either Emily and or Melania, their, their emails are there. Obviously do go and have a look at the website, .
You know, we'd love to, to, showcase some of the fantastic charities and organisations that are out there that are doing such important work in animal welfare. I mean, part of our remit is webinar vet is to make sure that the education that we have in the UK we can, you know, spread around and using vets from all over the world, the quality is there, . With our programme of one for one initiative, every vet who buys a ticket not only gives their tickets, for themselves, but they get another ticket, which goes to vets in countries like, India and Thailand and, and some of the countries in Africa.
We've talked about also, you know, those of you who have come to the conference, if you'd like to know, you know, where your tickets have gone, and you'd like to maybe do a twinning, Situation with one of the vets that is now watching this free of charge, thanks to your purchase of the ticket, then we can actually organise that as well. But I would also encourage you, you know, to get in contact with Emily or Melania. Also go to the website.
I presume Emily and Melania, all of this work that you do actually does cost money. Oh yes, that's quite a bit. This, this is one of the problems and you know, if you've been really moved by today, do feel free to go to the website.
I'm sure there are ways of donating money in an easy way off the website. Or if they emailed you, that would also be possible. Yes, there are, especially if you go to www.worldanimalprotection.org.
That's our international website and from there you can actually go into the specific different websites for the offices that we have around the world. We have well, is it 15, Emily? We have 15, 1 is in the United States, another in Canada, one is in London, and then we have a few others in Europe and the rest of the world, but the, the ones that I mentioned and Australia, those are big on fundraising.
So if you want to get in contact with them through that website and, and, and make a donation, we'd be very happy and that that's the way that we can keep on, you know, moving the world to help animals, which is what we love to do. Well, you know, that's, that's our first thing, isn't it? It's animal welfare and, you know, you're doing fantastic work and obviously, if any of our guys listening today or were listening to the recording can help, you know, there are some of the ways that, you may be able to help Emily and Melania.
Nomfundo has a question. He says to the presenting team, if one intends initiating such programmes in one's country, where can one get the necessary support? And Nomfundo, perhaps if you just tell us where you're listening in from, because there may be some things going on that you don't know about.
So we'll wait to see, well, actually answer the question and Mfundo may or may not answer that. How how is he able to perhaps, you know, present an idea to, to you? I think that the best way is just to send us an email and let us know what this, what his specific worries and, and interests are and let us know where he's from and what's going on in his country or his region and we can, you know, if we can't answer that question, then we will put him in contacting someone around the rest of the world.
Like I said, we have 15 offices, so the programmes are spread around the world and I think that would be the probably the best way to do that. Nomfundo is listening in the UK but from South Africa. Do you have some programmes in South Africa?
In South Africa, we work with a partnership called GAC, Global Alliance for rabies, Elimination. Their offices are in fact in South Africa in Pretoria. So if he writes to us, then we can work with him because GARC with the World Health organisation has actually done a one health dog population management and rabies elimination programme in KwaZulu-Natal, which is one of the world's successful ones, like in Philippines, and it's still ongoing.
So if he's from a different region within South Africa and would like to know how to do it, we can put them in contact with them because that was a private, private government partnership, how that programme came to be. And in fact, he could actually go there and meet them and see how that programme is ongoing. So there is actually a very successful pilot in KwaZulu-Natal.
That's brilliant. Luke, perhaps just while we've got a few more questions coming in. If you want to put the the loop on, just to let people know of some of the things that we're getting up to in the next few weeks and months, there are some interesting things like our, mood series of webinars that Mike Scanlon is doing.
We had a really successful night last night with the Royal College's Mind Masses initiative, several 100 people listening about how to find your purpose and passion. You know, listening to Emily and Melania, it's clear that, that you guys have done that, but, that there's some good stuff coming up that will, will help people, so do have a little look at some of those things, make some notes. If there's anything that looks interesting or useful, let us know and we can, we can point you in the right direction.
So Luke is going to change that, and we've got 5 minutes before we, we start with our dentistry, symposium, which I'm really looking forward to. That's been kindly sponsored by Bonovate. We'll be hearing from Ivan first, and then Alex, who's one of our top dentists in the country, going to be talking about a few dental topics.
So if you're interested in that, please do stay on. . Nomfundo is saying he's intending to opening a charity hospital project, a huge one in the Eastern Cape, but with welfare aspects incorporated.
So that all sounds very interesting and best of luck with that, no fundu. Are there any other questions anybody want to make any er comments, got somebody listening in from Vienna, any more exotic places do, do let us know, it's always fascinating. And if you've enjoyed today's talk, I will put up.
A small Facebook post, please feel free to, to leave comments there, and of course do answer the survey questions that will get thrown at you at the end of this symposium. Anthony, can I, can I add something now listening to you talking about how, you know, finding your passion and all of that, and I think that at least when I went. To vet school.
Whenever anybody talked about shelter, medicine, animal welfare, and animal welfare organisations, it was like they had this, I don't know, nobody really wanted to work in them. And working for animal protection has kind of opened my eyes and, and I, and I noticed that what people think. We do is not necessarily what we do, and I think that people think that we stay neuter all the time and there's so much more than that.
So, you know, I've, I've definitely found my passion working for this organisation, and it might be that other people find their passions working for organisations or at least volunteering for these sort of organisations around the world. No, that's really fascinating because I think there can be a tendency, you know, to, to say it's about. Vaccinating against rabies and distemper and spaying, and that's it.
Whereas, you know, the white people who came in, you know, and, and did a thing which clearly made a problem, you know, it is, is part of a big, huge part of . Development problems that go wrong, where lots of money gets spent, but actually it makes no difference because the local community were never spoken to, or their insights are, you know, listened to, and of course that is not respectful, but it also usually leads to poor solutions, doesn't it? Mhm.
Yes, it does. But thank you so much, that's been so fascinating. You know, I would encourage people to go over to the, the site, have a little look at it.
I know, Melania and, you know, both of you are very happy to, to, to be, spoken to and, emailed and so on, aren't you, Emily and Melania. Absolutely. And thank you again for the invitation.
It has been a great experience for us.
