Romanian Rescue Appeal (RRA) was started by Lindsey Church in 2014 in order to help resolve the situation of stray dogs in Romania. Since the 1980s, the failures of the national government have led to a huge population of stray dogs being targeted on the street and tortured in public shelters.
RRA aims to make a difference to all this. We take a systemic approach and add value to each step of the chain that brings these dogs from the deprivation on the streets in Romania, to living long healthy life in loving homes in the UK. We carry out spay campaigns to control the population. We rescue dogs from an agonizing death that is certain in a public shelter. We raise precious funds to feed them and provide them with shelter and veterinary care. We advertise them on a variety of channels to find them forever homes and assess all applicant thoroughly to match them to the perfect dog for them. We care just as much for the adopter and the adoptee.
All our staff in the UK are volunteers. We do not waste a single penny and reinvest all donations on the dogs. We need your help to do this. Please find out more on how you can support us.
BARCEA – in the last quarter of 2018, we acquired land with 2 barns and a dilapidated house in east Romania, about 20 miles from the currently rented Tecuci shelter. This is a huge step forward, we have great plans for this shelter:100 kennels within the 2 barns, each with external secure runs and including a medical area to allow not only urgent care for our dogs, but to enable free spay and neuter for local dogs in the future. We also aim to renovate the house so that we can host volunteers travelling to the shelter to help the staff and experience the dogs first-hand. This will be our flagship shelter and first of its kind, our Romanian Rescue Centre! It is early days in the development, and we are desperate for help. READ MORE HERE to see how you can help us help the dogs.
CĂLĂRAȘI – We have an open shelter in Călărași, south east Romania. We opened this two years ago. This houses around 400 dogs. We built and developed there, so there are three good size barns. We realised early in that open shelters carry risk and we have been trying to fundraise for a large number of kennels at this site. So far, we have built () kennels and still need many more. The existing kennels have a run alongside. The advantage is no risk from dogs outside of the area and each kennel can come out to play each day, when the kennels are cleaned. It is extremely hard to raise funds to finish this development. We pay 5 day and night staff there.
BRASOV – Safe Haven is right in the centre of Romania. It is managed by two vets and there are 130 dogs residing there. It offers traditional style kennels where 2 to 4 dogs share each kennel. There are some traumatised dogs living there and they will need an opportunity to access some rehabilitation.
TECUCI – Our first development in Romania was in Tecuci, east Romania. We helped develop this shelter back in 2015 and now have 220 dogs there. This shelter has winter barns and bigger runs, some kennels hold up to 10 dogs. There are also smaller kennels. There are two managers and two staff. Previously we paid rent, but currently we pay all the utility bills, food, vaccinations flea worm and tick treatments.