In a world where humans find it difficult to feel empathetic towards other humans, there is this tribe, led by a fearless woman, who have dedicated their entire lives to the betterment of the lives of animals. Imagine waking up each day, going out in the world, finding animals who are in pain; and in pain meaning, hit by running vehicles, stuck in the oddest of the places, tortured by humans, injured in inexplainable manners, broken limbs, oozing organs, victims of gory violent minds, or simply abandoned with nowhere to go. Basically, sights that can make us sick in our stomachs. To find such animals, irrespective of whether they are domestic, wild, reptiles, venomous etc, comfort them, treat them right there or by bringing them back to the RESQ facility, where they are fed, cared for, operated upon if necessary, loved, healed, seen to it that they recover, only to, release them back into their natural habitat or to give them up for adoption so that they find the love they are worthy of. All this and more, simply on the virtue of one hundred percent dedication and job satisfaction.
Beyond kindness, empathy and sympathy, there is an emotion called selflessness. RESQ defines selflessness and its founder, Neha Panchamiya defines fearlessness. She, along with the core team at RESQ are found rescuing animals from the wildest and remotest of the locations, fighting anyone coming in their way of it, and fighting harder with the fates of animals about to give up on themselves. If you know what the statue of The Fearless Girl looks like, imagine Neha Panchamiya standing like that and all the animals of the world standing behind her, safe and happy.
So, how could it be any different during the lockdown? Before most of us could figure out our own supplies, RESQ had their supporters pledge and send in over 34,000 kilos of food for animals. Dogs, cats, cows and horses around the city and nearing areas were fed. Needless to say, the RESQ team has not taken a single day off. Just when this was being addressed, news of pets being abandoned started pouring in along with scores of animals that needed to be rescued from various situations. The RESQ team has rescued and rehabilitated over 320 of these animals just in the lockdown period. Besides attending to rescue calls daily, one part of their team dedicatedly looked after the 150 animals with them under inpatient care and sanctuary during the lockdown.
Not limiting their help to animals alone, RESQ, collaborated with another NGO called The Grasslands Trust India, who work towards the conservation of wildlife found in grassland and scrubland habitats of India. Together they identified over 75 families from the grassland community who were mostly daily wage workers and were stranded with their animals and distributed over 4,400 kilos of ration to over 300 individuals and 85 animals, enough to keep them all going for a month at least.
Along with this, through the lockdown, RESQ has constantly been rescuing, treating, and releasing wild animals and birds, like striped hyenas, snakes, leopards, monkeys, barking deers, emus, jungle cats, kites, owls, pangolins and many more.
In a thousand words we couldn’t do justice to what all the RESQ team does. But to sum it all up, if animals could smile, every animal ever touched by anyone from RESQ, definitely might have smiled from ear to ear. RESQ has created a community of people who are more sensitive about animal cruelty and proudly empathise towards animals.
We, at Kalamwali salute RESQ and applaud their tireless efforts to help those who are voiceless and cannot help themselves, especially during the lockdown. To know more about RESQ, to understand the RESQ’s amazing culture better and to help them in their spectacular and fearless journey visit www.resqct.org