Dorothy Brooke and an old rescued war horse.
Wellington, FL – February 20, 2015 – It all began with a letter from Dorothy Brooke in 1931. She was the wife of a British army major general, stationed in Cairo, Egypt, just after the end of World War I. She had noticed a number of older, emaciated horses on the street being used and abused, pulling heavily loaded carts through the city streets. As the story is told, she was horrified to learn that many of these downtrodden and spiritless animals were ex-war horses from England, Australia, and the U.S., and that their Egyptian owners lacked the wherewithal to properly care for and support the horses.
These horses, which had been shipped over for the war, had been sold by the army to local working families as the war died down in 1918. In reality, they had been handed a life sentence of hard labor, being over worked, under fed and literally worked to death. That’s when she wrote her heartfelt letter to the Morning Post, describing the horrors she was seeing. The letter described a fund that was being established to buy up some of these heroic horses, ones who had been part of the fight for their country during the war. In her letter she concluded, “If those who truly love horses, those who realize what it means to be very old, very hungry, very thirsty and very tired, in a country where hard, ceaseless labor has to be done in great heat, will send contributions to help in giving a merciful end to our poor war heroes, we will be extremely grateful and in many ways we venture to think that this may be as fitting a part of a War Memorial as any other that could be devised.”
Readers were so moved that over $32,000 was raised – a significant sum in the 1930s. Thanks to those generous people, Dorothy and her team of volunteers were able to purchase nearly five thousand of the old war horses. They were in such poor health that most were euthanized immediately, but thanks to Dorothy and the donors, they ended their lives peacefully.
By 1934, there was enough money and support for Dorothy to christen the Old War Horse Memorial Hospital in Cairo, which offered free veterinary care for the city’s working horses and donkeys.
With that, the Brooke was born.
Today, that organization named in honor of Dorothy Brooke spans the globe, working in communities where many people earn less than a dollar a day. The Brooke has improved the welfare of millions of working equines and the people who depend on the animals to survive their daily lives.
The Brooke’s outreach now has expanded to eleven nations on three continents with programs in India, Egypt, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Jordan, Senegal, Guatemala and Nicaragua with free mobile or static veterinary clinics operating in nearly all of those countries. Plans are now underway to add to their life saving efforts with additional countries in Africa, Asia and Central and South America on the expansion list.
An American fundraising branch, Brooke USA, has recently been opened in Lexington, Kentucky, to support the overseas work of the Brooke.
Cindy Rullman is the Fundraising Development Manager for Brooke USA. She notes, “The combination of providing direct, hands-on intervention for individual animals, coupled with the Brooke’s vast worldwide view and their ability to reach more than a million animals each year, is extremely exciting and rewarding to me,” she said. “Add to that the fact that we reach millions of the world’s poorest people and you have something that’s truly unique, truly significant and something that really matters.”
She went on to explain, “It matters because it improves the lives of the people and animals who are often invisible to the rest of the world, and it matters because it affects the economy of entire regions.”
Stated simply, Rullman concluded, “The Brooke can ease the suffering of a downtrodden donkey who lives with his owner in a slum, and consequently make life better for that owner and family who are depending on the donkey to help them scratch out a living. Both benefit. And we do that hundreds of times a day, every day, millions of times each year. How incredible is that?”
To become involved with the Brooke, please visit their website at: www.BrookeUSA.org.
Susie Webb for Phelps Media Group, Inc. International
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