Charity Work

Hello and welcome! I am Ruthy Doolittle, Animal Communicator and Transformational Energy Mentor. They may say never work with animals or children, but I work with both – and I love it!

Ruth has supported charities most of her life, her early memories are of giving away her favourite teddy bear as there had been some awful natural disaster and she felt sad about the children not having a favourite toy,  sshe sent her teddy along with blankets to those in need in Armenia.


LIFE
Lucy Irvine Foundation Europe is run by a fascinating and kindhearted soul, Lucy. It is where both of our rescue dogs have come from, and the grassroots work she does to educate poor families about animal welfare, outreach rehoming work is commendable. After all, in the UK we are blessed with free education and a pet-loving nation, not every country in the world is like that. If you have a little spare then do consider supporting a charity like this who really put their money where their mouth is.

 


Part of Ruth’s wishes are to replant a billion trees in her life for future generations to benefit from and can’t do it on her own.   So she chose to partner with Tree sisters, a global movement not just about planting trees but about reconnecting to the cycles and ancient wisdom of our world while empowering communities worldwide.

Ruth chooses to donate a percentage of her takings to the incredible movement, Tree Sisters.  A small contribution each month plants a few trees in the tropical rainforests and lungs of our world, here on earth, and as her turn over increases so will her contribution, so that for every transaction in her business, something good happens in the world.

Tree Sisters support local communities to replant the forests and create sustainable livelihoods at the same time. There will be more from Ruth on this very soon, as she has been busy starting a forest of her own!


SEED MadagascarAs she got older Ruth found volunteering hugely rewarding and went to Madagascar for a 3 month conservation and humanitarian trip that changed her life! She volunteered for SEED in Madagascar and not only built a school, taught in a school in a different village, delivered health education, built wells, collected and planted seeds to grow tree nurseries which would go on to build corridors between isolated parts of remaining forest, increasing the likelihood of biodiversity surviving. Only 10% of forest is left of Madagascar, with all the animals endemic to the island, their survival relies on the gene pool being diverse enough to create strong babies.  Ruth lived in a tent for nearly 3 months, living without electricity, flushable toilets or hot running water.  With water being pumped from a nearby well it was rationed to only 1 bucket of water for personal cleaning a day, eating like the locals, beans rice and whatever fruit was in season.  Ruth had an encounter with a wild lemur that stayed with her and changed the way she thought about the animal kingdom forever.  You can read about that in PICK ME UP! Magazine.


I have supported Greenpeace since I was a youngster, in case you didn’t know they campaign for all sorts of environmental justice around the globe from our forests to the bees, the oceans to the poles Greenpeace have been around since 1971, their vision is for a greener, healthier and more peaceful planet, one that can sustain life for generations to come and this really resonates with me too.  What we do to our planet today doesn’t just impact the planet, or us.  I invite you to consider how it impacts the next 7 generations, and then adjust your buying habits to support the long term!  There are so many ways businesses and individuals can make changes, ,little changes add up to big changes and everyone is responsible for the footprint they leave on our planet.
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/


The Butterfly Conservation

Our pollinators help the food we eat to grow, not just the bees (though they too are important) and an easy way to support this is to sign up to something like the Butterfly conservation and grow a butterfly bed in the garden!  We support them as I love to see Butterflies and feel they are a great way to inspire children to support and take an interest in their natural surroundings.  Again the support does not need to be a huge investment, it could be your time or something you do as a family in your garden.


Punarbal Plus Punarbal Plus in Kathmandu, Nepal provides a home, meals, clothes and education for its residents aged 4 -16 years of age, all of whom are displaced by poverty and HIV. Due to the relative short stay (less than 3 weeks) Ruth stayed mainly behind the scenes with getting their newsletter up and running and other marketing and admin assistance, as well as joining them for a day trip to the local zoo (not for the feint hearted!) and shared lunchtime playtimes skipping and colouring with the children.

What struck Ruth was just how happy the children were, how they shared their stories and explained how they were different in an orphanage, how the typical constraints of society in their culture it is a cast system (likened to our class system) and how they celebrated all religious major holidays and festivals.  Despite the adverse beginnings these children had, health concerns and stigma of their illnesses, they were filled with hope and education.  Of course they relished the chance to practice their English and see their face on a screen too!


Cats Protection League are a large UK based cat re-homing charity, the work they do is vast and far-reaching.  We choose to support them with a monthly donation towards the cost of looking after the 500 cats a day they help. As a mad cat lady I would love to help a LOT more cats, however with 4 in our current clowder, we really are full so this is the next best thing for me, to support a charity that helps a lot of cats.  Even a small donation on a regular basis can go a long way towards supporting charities, many if not all receive little or no help from the government and depend solely on donations from heart centred individuals and businesses alike.

 


Ruth’s love of animals is at the core of why and how she ended up being part of the team at Hopefield Animal Sanctuary one winter.  After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing around which charity to help, Ruth and one chose Hopefield Animal Sanctuary in Brentwood, Essex.

Hopefield Animal SanctuaryHopefield provide a home for life to their 500 unwanted, rescued or abandoned resident animals.  Many of the animals have had very poor treatment and really do need a lot of extra care, veterinary attention and peace and quiet.  The sanctuary is only open to the public and has a small dedicated team of staff and much larger team of volunteers. The staff look after the medicine, additional care, more involved handling and animal husbandry where the volunteers, clean and muck out beds, make up and give out meals, and generally provide manpower.

Ruth absolutely adored her volunteering days at Hopefield and enjoyed getting stuck in with whatever needs doing on that day.  One visit it was repairing some fencing, moving some old rubbish to the recycling area, and the next poo picking up in the miniature ponies field, as well as moving one very old lady miniature back out to the paddock after she’d had her special feed, what rewarding days! In the current climate she is a regular donor rather than hands on.