It is not often that we meet people that are willing to give so much of themselves to others, but Elika Mansouri does just that! She is a teacher at a prominent British school in Kuwait and at the same time she is the founder of iCare Kuwait, an animal shelter that was created in October 2019 and has successfully rescued, treated, rehabilitated, and rehomed over 1,000 cats and dogs in Kuwait.
Inspired by her students, Elika created an Instagram page for all of the animals that she fed and took care of around the school. This encouraged the students to get involved and help feed the animals with her. Elika started posting her rescue stories on her Instagram and the before and after pictures of her rescues to show much of the difference she was making. Her page received more attention when over 100 dogs were rescued from a poisoning campaign.
Since then, iCare has opened two shelters where they home their cats and dogs. Elika tells us that her “biggest goal is to promote compassion and kindness towards strays of Kuwait and show the local community every cat or a dog is capable of becoming a human companion with time, love and patience.” She definitely knows what she is talking about since she has rehomed over 200 stray dogs abroad where they found their true human companions. She also hopes to create more awareness about the importance of vaccination, spaying and neutering animals in order to avoid adding to the overpopulation of strays.
Elika shares that “managing iCare and teaching children both heavily depend on one thing: compassion for the vulnerable. I enjoy working with children and youth. They have so much to offer and they make up future generations. I would love to help them succeed in their studies as well as know how to be kind humans. You also need to have a strong network of volunteers, transport system, time management skills to be able to have an animal shelter.”
What is impressive about Elika is that she manages to give her all to both animals and children, even though she teaches full time, she has found a way to spend a lot of her time by helping animals. She recently took a two-day trip to deliver rescued dogs for adoption to the USA and then return back to work as soon as she arrived back in Kuwait. We are sure that not many people would be able to mentally handle such a stressful and tight schedule but Elika is so passionate that she feels that nothing can stop her. Clearly, when there is a will there’s a way.
Elika finds that the most heartbreaking scene in Kuwait is the Friday Market, where she tells us that people abandon sick animals, sell stolen cats and dogs, and the hygiene of some shops is awful. Of course, that is only part of the struggle when rescuing animals. Elika shares that “animal abuse is also not taken seriously as we have seen so many cases that have occurred and the abuser was not charged with any criminal offense. We don’t have a 24-hour veterinary hospital. Kuwait has many animal lovers and owners and frequently they suffer all night when their animal falls sick. As rescuers, we have lost so many lives since there is no place to rush emergency cases to.”
“My dream includes many things for the animals in Kuwait. Firstly, I would like to see a more humane strategy to control the stray population. I also would like to see more interest in local adoption; most of our rescued dogs are adopted internationally and they go into homes and have beautiful families looking after them. Why can we not have this in Kuwait? Another dream for us rescuers is having more support and recognition from the government. Animal abuse and abandonment should be considered a crime and taken seriously as it’s an indication of other psychological issues and danger to the community,” Elika continues.
We asked Elika about the hesitancy of people wanting to adopt rescues due to temperament. She told us that “it is true that not every dog or a cat is comfortable about being handled by humans, in particular due to abuse and abandonment, which can easily make animals scared of strangers. She highlights that the shelters are full in Kuwait and buying animals only adds to the crisis and that all dogs need training and routine, breed or non-breed. Rescues just need extra love, time and patience depending on their history. They need to gain trust after humans failed them.”
So how can you get involved? The shelter is always in need of volunteers, especially for the Wafra center. Dogs need lots of love and attention and iCare’s dogs are very friendly with humans – so if you are ever available to go out and give some dogs some TLC, reach out to iCare. Additionally, there is always a financial burden on the shelters to care for the rescued animals in terms of food, litter, cleaning supplies and hospital bills.
If you are interested in adopting, donating, or volunteering at the iCare shelter, reach out to Elika on Instagram and she will be more than happy to support your involvement. Or just give them a follow @icareq8 to learn more about her animal rescue efforts in Kuwait.
