uk vets arrive to offer assistance

Prof. Peter Clegg (Professor of Equine Orthopaedics) and Dr Debra Archer, both from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Liverpool University, UK, and Lucy  Meehan of the Animal Health Trust, Newcastle, together with three vets from private UK practices, recently arrived in Sambel Kunda, near Kudang, CRR, where the Gambia Horse & Donkey Association has its headquarters.

Assisted by GHAD co-founder Heather Armstrong the vets conducted the last of the three modules of the 2008 course that is part of the Gambia College’s livestock course with equine specialities. The two year course, with fourteen students, is fully funded by GHAD scholarships. GHAD also host and arrange the overseas lecturers who conduct the course’s six up-country modules.

The State Guard also attaches three students to these modules in order to transfer as much valuable knowledge and expertise from the visiting vets. Prof. Clegg said that he was delighted to be able to teach on this course. He was pleased with the enthusiasm and the interest shown by the students and was impressed with their existing level of knowledge.

The students made excellent progress on the current course which concentrated on lameness, wounds and skin disease. “I am sure that the students will be a valuable asset to the their country on completion of their course”, concluded Prof. Clegg GHAD was set up by the late Dr Stella Brewer Marsden OBE (well known as the founder and chairman of the world famous Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Trust based at the River Gambia National Park) with her sister, Heather Armstrong, to address the   need for practical assistance for farmers and their horses and donkeys. It is a win-win situation, for when an animal’s welfare improves so does its longevity and its capacity for work.

As a result of improved animal welfare agricultural productivity and farmers’ incomes also increases and thus the rural economy is boosted. GHAD has for some years conducted weekly clinics in Wassu, Mamud Fana and Brikamaba with staff and volunteers based at the Sambel Kunda HQ.

But as the number of people trained by, and through, GHAD increases and as funding allows, it is planned to spread out beyond Sambel Kunda with trained staff establishing new centres for farmer education in equine management, welfare, farriery (foot care) and harness making.