The Bali Animal Welfare Association, or BAWA for short is an organisation in Bali that helps animals that are sick, injured, or abandoned. They provide medical care for sick animals, and shelters for abandoned ones. BAWA also works with local communities to teach people how to care for animals properly. Their work focuses on improving animal welfare across the island.

We visited a BAWA shelter, when we arrived we were greeted by a mother and two of it’s puppies who had just arrived and were being quarantined so they could have their vaccinations. We then met some of the staff who gave us a tour of the shelter, it had been split into three seperate gardens with a house in the center, each garden had different sizes of dog with one alpha in each. Once we entered the house we interviewed the manager of the shelter and were able to meet some of the newborn puppies who were sleeping in the other room. The staff explained what they feed the dogs and how they are managed.

Below is the transcript of my interview:

1 Is it hard to rehabilitate dogs who are scared of humans?

“Yeah, it’s really hard for us, especially if we need to find a home for them. Because mostly people want puppies specially bred, like chihuahua, mini pom, stuff like that. And then we just found local gully dogs that are old, or puppies with skin issues and everything. So yeah, it’s really hard for us.”

2 Has your organization been successful in changing laws regarding animal abuse?

“It’s really challenging  because some people have it in their culture to abuse their animals. Some parts of the country, not in Bali but mostly in east Indonesia.”

3 How do you handle aggressive dogs during rescue?

“During the rescues, we have a special team that helps to catch the dog with nets.  So sometimes it will be difficult for us, so we try many times.  But yeah, it takes a while.”

4 Do you have any future plans for the organization?

“For this organisation, the future plan is a risky question but the thing is we are still trying our best to get more funding so we can help more. In this shelter we have 129 dogs and because it’s really hard to find a home for them because they keep coming. We need someone to keep them, and we need more funding to help more.”

5 Do you collaborate with any other organizations or people?

“We don’t really collaborate with the organisation. But from the outside, they help us to raise funding and then also sometimes they come to visit and give us donations.”

6 Which of your programs do you think has had the biggest impact so far?

“The biggest impact, I think, is education in the schools. So we teach them from a young age, as kids, how to care about and for animals and how to report the animals to us if they found one. Education is really important for us, the program allows us to  educate more people and more kids about animals.”