A lot of people have asked me about my trip to India, specifically 'why India’ and how I found the India Project for Animals and Nature (IPAN).
For a long while now, I’ve been looking for a way to pay back, a way to give or help those horses that get overlooked. Horses have given me so much in my life. For me, each day is focused on and filled with horses in some way. From my own little herd to my online horse training business and my PhD project in training and welfare – horses fill my world.
I had been looking for a cause, someone that could really use my help, when one day I came across the IPAN website explaining how they too were looking for a special person to help their horses. I contacted them immediately and began making arrangements.
It’s never a good or easy time to pack up and leave the country for a month, so I put a date in the diary and everything else just had to work around that. It’s also never cheap to undertake a project like this but my feeling was, as the trip was completely self-funded, that I just need to get on and begin – when do we really ever have the time and money to do the important things? How many of us can take time out like this to volunteer our expertise and services to others that really need it?
The month I just spent in India has been amazing and it will be the first of many trips I plan to make. I have met some wonderful people, all doing different jobs but all helping others, people and animals, in need. I have been welcomed into their homes, introduced their communities and given opportunities to teach the most receptive and enthusiastic of audiences.
Now in Singapore for a few days, I’m catching up on writing up my blog. If you’d like to read some of my posts from India, click here.
