Tuesday, May 12, 2009

let's start a revolution

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

let's start a revolution

These are exciting times for cat welfare volunteers, supporters and activists. In the beginning, they started websites, then forums and they blogged. Now more than ever, they have organised themselves into a remarkably coherent voice for the common community cat in our communal void decks and on our collective streets.

The woman remembers that singular moment when her flame for cat welfare was fanned into burning scorching action. That was 5 years ago when Maneki walked into her life. Back then, it was tough to get started. Cat Welfare Society helped by providing starter packets of information but because there were never enough people to start a TNRM group in this area, it didn’t make sense for CWS to come down to conduct workshops or to make contact with the town council.

The woman had to find her own way, attend a TNRM workshop in NLB, loan a couple of traps, make herself useful to the town council officer and just get on with it.

Blogs and bloggers certainly helped along the way but cold hard information was tough to come by to paint a coherent picture of how we arrived at the present milestones in cat welfare, who are our minor and major movers in government and civil society and what are the common goals for the future.

It is truly only after Facebook and the flowering connections it proffered that this organically emerging animal welfare ecosystem in Singapore is crystallising in a way that this feline hopes will inspire progressive thinking and greater action in Singaporeans for us Singaporean cats. Facebook connects people, their human faces and their stories on a level that surpasses their carefully crafted words that make up websites, blogs and forums. This has done more to move bodies of knowledge around at great speeds without saying any much more than people are already doing.

So if you haven’t found your way onto the bandwagon, maybe this is the time.

This blog has been featuring links to other animal welfare groups in Singapore since forever, it also spots a blogroll that I have just split into a local list and the rest of the world so that it is easier to monitor our very own catty echo chamber of meows and grunts.

If you want to join the revolution that is happening online, here is a list of Facebook groups that you can hook up with for starters. Perhaps by chance or design, we might become mutual online friends and fans and I look forward to that.

Organisations
Cat Welfare Society Page / Group
SPCA Singapore

Issues
Cats in flats...
Support Pet Shops that Do Not Sell Pets
Stop Culling and Revive Stray Cats Rehabilitation Scheme in Singapore
STOP the culling of stray cats!

Support Groups
Cat-CareGivers' Support Group
Cat Fosterers (Singapore)
TnRM (Singapore and Malaysia)
Singapore Adoption Group

Student Groups
Cats Management Network
SMU Paw
NUS PEACE! People Ending Animal Cruelty and Exploitation
NUS Cat Cafe

Other Groups
Cat Absolut
Paw Pledge
MettaCats
Blessing Home

General
Cat Lovers Singapore
Singapore Community Cats