WE’RE NOT A SHELTER! WE DON’T ACCEPT ANY NEW ANIMALS!
Please support our social ecological initiative “Cat’s Town” in Ukraine.
Cat Town is located on the territory of the Kyiv Zoo. You can access us through the gate for trucks near the building at 4a Zoologichna str. Cat Town is surrounded by a fence and is located in the household area of the zoo. The location is surrounded by two hangars and a parking lot.
Our pages in social networks:
Instagram (Cat Town), Instagram (Nature First)
Our financial details.
Contact person of NGO “Nature First” FJA”: Oleg Andros, Coordinator for public relations +38(097)502-75-51, e-mail: zoocatskyiv at gmail.com Facebook.
About Cat Town project
We are non-government organization registered in the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. Our NGO is called “Nature first Free Journalist Association”. Also the foundation “Ukraine Today” in the Netherlands is supporting us as a nonprofit, non-governmental organization.
Since 2010 we, volunteers of NGO “Nature first”, had been creating the Cat’s Town in the Kyiv Zoo. Now we need support from all the humane people living all over the world.
There’s more than 80 stray cats living in Kyiv zoo. We had cought, healed and sprayed/neutered them. In this way we saved these animals from violent death on the streets or within the walls of Kyiv Zoo. Now almost all the cats are living on a special territory gathered by high fence. This place is called the Cat’s town and is fully supported by patrons who provide charity (we ask for charity donations using social networks), not by the Ukrainian state or local authorities.
During its existence, our project Cat’s Town became an unusual place for people who love animals. Among our numerous guests are people tired of life in the metropolis, people (children and adults) with disabilities, displaced people from the Donbass zone of military action, combat actions participants. We kindly accept all the kinds of arts in our project: you can hear good music and refined poetry there, we treat people with tea, visitors communicate with cats and make selfies with animals.
Our aim is creation of a fully-developed art zone combined with a place for adoption of stray cats. However, the zoo started reconstruction and we were informed by local authorities that in 2019 we have to leave the zoo and take out all the stray cats. In Kyiv and its suburbs there are a lot of neglected green zones (parks, woods) that we could turn into a picturesque cottage. However, this requires the permission of the city authorities. We ask you to sign an appeal to the city mayor and city council deputies with the request to provide a new place for Cat’s Town.
Overview
Cat Town is Kyiv-based project concerning 3 main topics:
* Promotion of art (photography, music, theatre, filmmaking etc)
* Adoption of stray cats
* Promotion of environmental-friendly practices (e. g. upcycling, energy-sufficient technologies, alternative sources of energy etc).
Goals
- Find a funding for sustainable existence of our project.
- Develop self-sufficient infrastructure of Cat Town including art place, adoption centre, cat cafe, rehearsal base, place for family recreation and cats therapy.
Our motto: “People save cats and cats save people”.
Specifications (What we want to establish)
- Place for different kinds of art: photography studio, live music stage, theatre performance stage, filmmaking studio, painting studio.
- Place for adoption of stray cats. It includes rooms for veterinary needs, rooms for cats housing, rooms for stuff.
- Museum of Cat which will include exhibitions of animalistic genre.
- Place for environmental-friendly practices (e. g. Upcycling).
- Place for treatment of stress, Post Traumatic Stress Reaction and other psychological diseases (for different kinds of guests – children, veterans of war etc).
- Place for family recreation.
- Place for daily living needs of Cat Town stuff and guests.
Why is our project important
- Creation of a space for art activities. At least one half of our territory will be a zone for arts. Art therapy will be the important part of the activities.
- Creating the space for our guests (families with children, veterans of war, people who need stress and PTSR treatment and other kinds of people interested in communication with cats). This is a unique project for Kyiv (there’s no cat cafe, cats’ therapy centre, museum of Cat or professional adoption centre in the capital of Ukraine). Key features that will attract guests: cats’ therapy, communication of children and adults with pets, art therapy, art festivals and exhibitions.
- Creating the space for upcycling (art recycling) promotion. We’ll establish the workshops where we’ll teach how to use “unnecessary” things and turn them into useful things.
- Development of art activities to rise the prestige of the animal welfare movement, which is not so popular in Ukraine. We’’ll ensure the development of these initiatives to the higher level.
- We’ll make a real-life model of energy-sufficient “green office”.
How is it relevant to the people
- Animals adoption and therapy for people. Most of Kyiv residents want to communicate with domestic animals but it can be difficult due to their living conditions. We provide a place for these needs. Also we’ll solve the problem of stray cats presence in Kyiv Zoo. This is the nature conservation area which status doesn’t tolerate stray animals.
- Art needs. We’ll provide a help for young or starting art activists.
- Environmental consciousness developing needs. We’ll popularise upcycling as a useful tool for solving a problem of glitter and trash.
- Providing a help to the orphaned children. We’ll help them to socialize and train them to meet domestic needs. Also we’ll provide a sessions of therapy for the people who have lost pets. The creation of community of cats friends is our goal.
We’ve created a working model of Cat Town at the moment. Our goal is a full development of the described activities in the new territory.