WHO WE ARE
Meru Animal Welfare Organization (MAWO) is a nonprofit animal-welfare organization working in the Meru region of Tanzania. Within our culture and society, we fight for these five freedoms of animals:
Freedom from hunger and thirst
Freedom from discomfort
Freedom from pain, injury and disease
Freedom from fear and distress
Freedom to express normal behavior
Our Mission is to protect all animals from torture, abuse, cruelty, diseases, and killing.
Our Vision is for animals to be respected as living creatures who experience pain, fear, and suffering.
Our Aim is to promote, improve, and develop any matter concerning the protection of animals and understanding of animals among the people of Tanzania without gaining any profit.
A SHORT HISTORY
In 2009, MAWO Founder and President, Johnson Lyimo and other community leaders were brought together to discuss their shared concern for the horrific animal treatment they were seeing in their communities. By 2010 they had completed a baseline survey to study the greatest needs for animal welfare in the Meru region. MAWO was created to address these problems so as to better the lives of both animals and humans in this area.
Since then, MAWO has played a significant role as a champion for animal welfare throughout the Meru District and Tanzania. “Animal welfare” to us means the concern for the well-being of an animal’s physical and mental state and involves the mitigation of avoidable suffering, injury, pain, fear, or distress resulting from unnatural behavior while used for work, sport, companionship, research or food. The ethical basis for MAWO’s policies stems from looking beyond the conservation of species to the welfare of individual animals.
