동물보호소 봉사활동
Every year, about 90,000 companion animals are abandoned or lost. Most of them are sent to animal shelters. Although the animal shelters are an opportunity for them to live on, they have to live in poor surroundings and cannot receive enough care and attention from people. If you want to help these animals, how about visiting the Gwangju Animal Shelter and participating in volunteer work?
The Gwangju Animal Shelter is located in Bonchon-dong, Buk-gu, Gwangju. When you visit there, you have to make a reservation in advance through its website (http://www.kcanimal.or.kr/) in order to do volunteer work. The main duty of volunteers is washing the dogs and taking them on a walk. It is a little bit difficult but worthwhile. Probably, you will have a heavy heart when you bring the dog back to the cage after finishing the duty because the dog has to wait for someone who would take it permanently. The manager of the animal shelter said that only about three animals are adopted while about 10 animals come into this shelter each day. Therefore, many animals in the shelter are in danger of being euthanized. A citizen who was about to adopt a dog said, “I raised the abandoned dog for 13 years which my father found in a trash heap but he died recently. I made up my mind to adopt a dog in this facility because I want to save the precious life of a dog as I did before.”
In addition, there are other activities you can do to help the abandoned animals. NGOs for animal rights and students’ groups work to protect animals. If you are interested, you can join them whenever you want. However, the best way to help animals is neither volunteering in animal shelters nor doing activities in the groups. The most important thing is not to abandon animals. People should take responsibility for their animals and respect them.
By Kim So-hee, Tribune Reporter