Our story
“I just knew I had to do something.” Phyllis Hutchison
Four Steps to Freedom – formerly known as Friends of Mbwa Wa Africa Animal Rescue – was founded by Phyllis Hutchison following a 2014 visit to Meserani, Tanzania, where she witnessed the shocking effect of rabies. First she saw the suffering of the dogs, brutalised and left to die in the streets following an ‘anti-rabies cull’. Then she discovered the human impact: the pain of a family torn apart by the death of their daughter after a fatal dog bite.
Since that time, we’ve been working to wipe out rabies in Tanzania, for good.
2014: the beginning
After seeing the suffering caused by rabies in Meserani, Phyllis resolved to do everything in her power to free Tanzania’s children and animals from the threat and fear of rabies, forever.
She found her first local supporters at Mbwa Wa Africa Animal Rescue, a centre whose German owners were prepared to take in and treat the injured dogs of Meserani. This was just the beginning.
Returning home to Glasgow, Scotland in the summer of 2014, Phyllis’s research soon revealed the full extent of the rabies situation:
Rabies is the world’s most deadly disease for humans and animals alike: once symptoms emerge, it is 99% fatal. Yet it is also 100% preventable.
Canine vaccination and population control has been shown by research to be the only way to break the cycle of dog-to-human rabies infection.
1,500 people die of rabies in Tanzania every year. Yet despite this, no systematic canine vaccination programme existed in the country in 2009.
The scale of the challenge was immense, but – with extensive fundraising experience behind her – Phyllis knew she had to act fast, resolving to do whatever it took to help free Tanzania from rabies, one community at a time. Four Steps to Freedom was born.
2015: the first sterilisation campaign
In March 2015, Phyllis founded Four Steps to Freedom, then known as Friends of Mbwa Wa Africa Animal Rescue: a charity registered in Scotland, raising money to organise a series of regular anti-rabies vaccination and sterilisation campaigns at Mbwa Wa Africa Animal Rescue in Tanzania.
In July 2015, our first sterilisation campaign took place, with the support of the Worldwide Veterinary Service (WVS) and resulting in the sterilisation of 108 dogs (47 males and 61 females) across one week.
Enlisting the support of global organisations including Mission Rabies and WVS as well the services of hundreds of volunteer vets, animal handlers and human educators from around the world, within six years we had supported the team in Tanzania to eliminate rabies completely from 21 local communities.
By vaccinating and sterilising dogs, whilst also educating local children in the safe handling of animals and training local vets in vital small-animal surgery skills, we developed our four-step approach to wiping out rabies effectively and sustainably. By building resilience locally, we ensured that, once eradicated, the threat of rabies would not return.
Today: the biggest challenge yet
Now, led by Phyllis and with the unfailing support of our team at the Mbwa Wa Africa Animal Rescue and around the world, we are facing our biggest fundraising challenge to date.
We want to accelerate the pace of change in Tanzania, by building a state-of-the-art dedicated veterinary and education centre for the Arusha region, from which we will be able to save more lives, more quickly. We call this ‘The Gongo Centre’.
Gongo means ‘crutch’ in Swahili, and the Centre is named in honour of Phyllis’s beloved three-legged dog, Gongo, who lost a leg and suffered facial injuries following a brutal machete attack in Tanzania.
We have already bought the land on which ‘The Gongo Centre’ will be built. Plans have been drawn up, and work is underway: but to complete the build, we must raise £300,000.
We re-named ourselves Four Steps to Freedom, to reflect our commitment: we are determined to wipe out rabies effectively and sustainably, not only at Mbwa Wa Africa Animal Rescue but in every community in Tanzania.
With so many lives at stake, failure is not an option.
The next chapter of our story is up to you. With your help, we can change the future of Tanzania for good.