The Donkey Sanctuary does amazing work all round the world (please donate) and some of you joined me in helping the recent Italy emergency, so thanks for your solidarity.
Today is International Women’s Day and the Donkey Sanctuary celebrated the role of donkeys in empowering women, with some really beautiful images of working donkeys and African women. Thank you to the Donkey Sanctuary for allowing me to reproduce the images here. A wonderful collection, finishing with the photo of Elisabeth Svendsen the inspirational founder of the Donkey Sanctuary.
Happy International Women’s Day !
Equus Asinus 
Amazing and beautiful, Gareth: I wondered where you had been and what you had been up to. Now I know, and couldn’t approve more! Hope all went well with your own move and that you and the Donks are now settled and happy.
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Hi Maggie: everything OK here in the new donkey heaven! We have the most beautiful place you could imagine. If you haven’t followed the move, it’s all on the blog. Sorry to have been out of touch but it has been a very intensive year! Just follow the back posts… Catch up with you later. I still want to do the donkey story project if we can get it together!
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Wonderful vibrant photos! I have always loved the fabrics that African women wear and used to browse the fabric shops in Dalston, in London. These photos are almost a fabric shop, there are so many colours and patterns and the individualistic ways the women wear them are very interesting. The colours and patterns of the donkeys are equally beautiful and look at the little foal! Are these the Nubian donkeys? Lovely positive photos for an important day.
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Hello Gareth Jackie here have just seen images of donkeys in Africa on I.W.D. lying in hospital feeling pretty wrecked. Alys sent me the link. What beautiful images. I take it that the woman are taught how to look after the animals caringly and lovingly and don’t the woman look splendid in their brightly coloured clothes.I was going to listen to the budget but I am so glad to have done this instead.it has brought colour to my day
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I am not entirely sure about the donkey breeds, but looking at the colour, the markings and the faces, these donkeys are the Nubian type but also similar to the Ethiopian donkeys. I wonder if the two names refer to the same breed? It would be interesting to explore this. (Refer back to Nubian donkey in Rubí blog last week.)
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Hi Jackie: I’m glad you are able to keep up with things in hospital. Sounds like you’re having a pretty horrible time, so it is good that the International Women’s Day donkey photos have brightened your day.
I’m belatedly convinced that it is time to stop flirting with any kind of conservative politics: in the light of Brexit and Trump, we need to be aware that the extreme right has declared war on everything that is reasonable in the world. We have to make a choice now. The people in developing countries will suffer more than we will in the Brave New World of the new 21st century politics. Let’s get on their side and keep committed to the United Nations development goals, before the Brexiteers and the Trumpers put the boot into the poorer nations.
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Donkey therapy always does the trick!
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Lovely donkeys and women. I give people donkeys for Christmas and birthday presents, although the donkeys (and goats, too) actually go to Darfur. It’s probably easier for the gift recipient to just get a paper card, too.
These donkeys look cheerful, and I imagine the ladies working with them are pleased to have the help. You might want to look at the kids for kids website. How to help people get themselves a better life.
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