PETPOSITIVE IS TWO YEARS OLD ON JUNE 07, 2008!What an incredible journey we have taken since our birth!
For an infant organisation, our past 24-month history-in-the-making have been all but extraordinary.
Our first mission almost immediately after we were registered was to rush out to the defence of an elderly sibling couple in Seremban. Their dogs which they had rescued from the streets had been mercilessly gunned down by the local authorities.
The authorities paid no regard or respect to the fact that their pets were providing animal-assisted therapy (AAT) in the lives of their human companions.
As a result of this, our society decided to go on an all out war against ignorance and prejudiced and sensitize the public about the need to care for our animals - as well as to point out to them about the unique role that AAT plays in the lives of the disabled and elderly persons in Malaysia.
We used the media like never before by literally spreading our message to the nation and the world through every newspapers, on radio and even in TV.
2007 also saw the formation of two significant information organs for our Society: PET+BLOGSPOT since October last year and POSITIVE+LIVES! The latter has been circulated widely from human hospitals to veterinarians.
Even the Welfare Department has helped us distribute them to the various states.
PET+BLOGSPOT, I'm happy to report has had remarkable success.
Updated daily, Our Weblog offers all the news of the Society's activities. There is also a daily digest of news on AAT, disability and on seniors' issues courtesy of Google international news.
Our news also regularly appears on Google too - taking our activities even further to the corners of the earth.
Through our Weblog we've had links with other blogs around the world - even specialised blogs and homepages on AAT, medicine and even psychiatry.
We have been appearing often at No 1 in the Health category of blogs since PET+BLOGSPOT was re-launched in October of last year.
We have also astoundingly made significant inroads into our local mainstream issues (including the domain of Malaysian bloggers) through our interactive features.
We are very humbled and thankful for this.
Our daily hits have had exceeded more than 1000 visitors on at least two occasions. Our daily visitors so far are nearing 16,000 in total.Petpositive's activities and mission have reached out to almost a 1000 disabled and elderly persons last year alone - and hundreds more through our media awareness efforts.
Apart from AAT, we managed to have covered a wide range of issues from disability rights to elderly care; health conditions from diabetes to depression, UN conventions to working with local governments.
The persons we reached out to had a wide range of conditions from epilepsy, learning disabilities, Deaf, blind, multiple handicaps, stroke, diabetes, heart attack, mental illness, Parkinson’s disease and other neurological diseases.
None of these would have ever been possible were it not for the support and strength from my committee and our exceptional volunteers like Captain Karim Stuart Russell and Lynda Merican.
Thanks also go to Elango Velautham, Norsham Yaakob (and Chan Mee Leng) who all have been heavily involved in Our AAT and nature therapy projects at the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia in Kepong, Selangor.
As for our print Newsletter, it has been fully sponsored by Mr Tan Teik Poh of K9 Pets Sdn Bhd and Diamond pet food.
For those of you whom I have inadvertently left out, I thank you all too.
Especially all our able-bodied volunteers and our committee for your untiring, selfless, dedicated and most important of all, facilitating roles in ensuring that Petpositive is for the disabled and elderly alone; and that it is their quality of life that is the ultimate goal of everyone in our Society.
We still have a long way more to go. Some of the things we are looking for in the future is to have our very own centre where our members can come to received AAT.
We also need a wheelchair-accessible van to better fulfill our duties. We want to set up a phone and peer-counseling centre, make hospital and home visits that are all related to animals and empowerment living.
So Happy Birthday to AAT. Animals truly rock!
Sincerely,
Anthony Siva Balan Thanasayan
President
PETPOSITIVE
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