non-US support +44 (0)161 531 8801
ROLDA sponsor the Animal-Assisted Rehabilitation and Nature Therapy Program
The program offers free, nature-based therapy and social inclusion for children with neurodevelopmental needs. Feldman Ecopark, Kharkiv is delivering it in partnership with the organization “Parallel Worlds”, which supports children with autism, and with the guidance of some consulting experts from the “Institute of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Addiction of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine”, with whom we have signed a memorandum of cooperation.
The full course consists of ten sessions, held three times a week – on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays – with each session welcoming between eight and twelve children accompanied by their parents. Every session is carefully structured and supported by our volunteers, trained animal handlers, a group guide and an administrator, so that each child receives gentle, personal attention in a calm and predictable environment.
During this program, children have enjoyed a rich variety of experiences: quiet contact and hands-on feeding sessions with our goats and lemurs, horse riding and structured hippotherapy (equine therapy), and visits to our rock park and swan lake, where they were able to feed the swans, nutrias and other animals. Alongside these, we held nature excursions and a relaxed outdoor picnic, as well as tactile art therapy masterclasses designed for both the children and their parents. Each session closed with a tea-time break and some free time together in the park.
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When war forces families to flee their homes, pets are often the ones left to fend for themselves. Strays wander abandoned, dangerous streets with no one left to feed them. Hungry, frightened, and alone.
While ROLDA continue to lobby for government and law enforcement in Romania & Worldwide, we are committed to do more to eliminate puppy mills structures where animals are abused and exploited.
#FriendsForever was created by ROLDA to help seniors keep their pets healthy and prevent them from being forced to abandon the only friend they may have.
Our first built (small) shelter is now twenty years old and despite being nominated multiple times for the best shelter in Romania, its age is beginning to show and is in need of some TLC. ROLDA holds to the highest standards of comfort and care and control disease management is a top priority for us, in both our shelteras but we need help maintaining those standards and providing the best possible facilities for our dogs.
Whilst Romanian law currently prohibits the sterilisation of stray dogs (and their returning to the wild), ROLDA are operating sterilisation campaigns in poor communities, targeting the pets of low- income families who could not afford private veterinary care. These campaigns tackle abandonment– one of the primary contributing factors to the national homeless dog crisis – in two key ways.
