A volunteer’s experience

Kirsti Sherring, a volunteer veterinary nurse from Australia, tells her story

My visit to Tanzania in 2019 for a spay/neuter campaign supported by the Worldwide Veterinary Service (WVS) is an experience that I hold dearly. This was my first trip overseas on my own and I did not quite know what to expect.

The plane I was on was full of other volunteers for the WVS campaign and their partner group Mission Rabies. I was suddenly introduced to some amazing and friendly individuals that I was to spend my time with on this trip. As soon as the plane from Qatar landed at Kilimanjaro airport, I felt all my pre-trip anxiety float away and excitement take hold.

Our lodging was in Arusha, a very comfortable and safe (guarded gates at entrance) location within a special needs school. I shared a room with one of the other nurses taking part in the campaign, a lovely woman from the UK with whom I became fast friends.

Dinner and meals were all prepared for us by some wonderful local cooks. The meals (all vegetarian) were delicious and plentiful, with safe clean water provided at all times. Meal times were a great time to socialise with other like-minded veterinary industry individuals from all over the world and we all became fast friends with a love of caring for animals uniting us all as a group.

We were all introduced to a very friendly, kind and knowledgeable man called Jens who runs the Mbwa Wa Africa Animal Rescue and who was the main organiser for the campaign. Throughout my time in Tanzania, I was increasingly impressed with Jens’ passion and dedication to the welfare of animals in Arusha and his focus on educating the community about respectful and responsible dog and cat ownership.

Each day we travelled to a different location around Arusha to sterilise and vaccinate local dogs and cats. The days started early with us setting up our makeshift veterinary surgery and we would keep going until all the animals were sterilised, vaccinated and safely recovered.

I was very impressed with the standard of care we provided to our surgical patients. All patients were given adequate premedication, had intravenous catheters, intubated and given intra-op fluid therapy. The main role of nurses was to monitor the patients during surgery and to administer TIVA (total intravenous anaesthesia). I was new to using TIVA but quickly got into the swing of it with the guidance of our lovely veterinarians.

Wherever our location was, locals and their children would come out to observe (from a safe distance) our work and were fascinated by our presence and what we were doing. These moments to interact with the locals were very fulfilling to me as I could see the kids especially learn to further respect and understand responsible pet ownership.

Some days we would be finishing up surgeries in the dark, with surgeons using headlamps.

Two other highlights of my trip were my visit to the Mbwa Wa Africa Animal Rescue and meeting all the amazing animals living there (and seeing all the incredible work Jens’ and his wife Sandra do) and also our safari visit to Ngorongoro conservation park, where I got to see amazing wildlife in an ethical and truly beautiful setting.

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience in Tanzania. I felt safe, well looked after, laughed a lot, made fantastic friends and most importantly to me, I felt like I had truly made a positive difference to the lives and experiences of the local cats and dogs of Tanzania.

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