I wanna talk about – charity volunteer

 

I wanna talk about a new hobby of mine which is doing volunteer work for local charity. The charity is called the Lamma Animal Protection and it's based on Lamma Island - where I live. And it aims to help abandoned animals or animals in distress on Lamma Island and in other areas in Hong Kong.

The charity was started by an Irish woman who moved to Hong Kong several years ago and found that she was concerned about a lot of the animals that she saw in the local area. The Lamma Animal Protection charity does different activities to help the animals. They have an adoption programme and also a fostering programme for animals that have been abandoned. They have a programme of neutering and spaying stray animals - cats and dogs, and also abandoned animals. And they also have a programme of education which aims to educate the local community about proper animal care.

I decided to get involved with the charity because I love animals but unfortunately because I work long hours, I am not able to have a pet of my own. Initially, I offered my services in terms of walking the dogs, grooming the dogs, and spending time with the other animals that they have at the centre. They have cats as well and even rabbits, and even some reptiles. Since then, I have also been involved on adoption days where they take some of the puppies out and onto... into the village on Lamma Island and show them off to members of the public and try to encourage members of the public to adopt these animals. I've also been a part of the education programme. As part of the education programme, I also went to a local kindergarten where I gave a presentation for the K3 children about responsible animal care.

The charity itself doesn't receive any funding. It relies solely on donations and volunteers like myself so I am very happy to be involved. And I very much enjoy the work that I do with them.

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Discuss:

Have you done any volunteer work before? What kind of volunteer work is that?

Are there any animal protection charity organisations in your country or city?

Have you kept a pet at home? What is it?

Would you adopt or foster strayed animals? Why?

What do you think is responsible animal care?

（Source: www. Englishonline.org.cn，编辑：Helen）