Egypt

❗️EGIPT. Dogs were supposed to disappear from the streets. Now poison is to disappear from the streets❗️

I’ve been getting ready for this text for a few days.

I opened photos, closed them, went back to recordings from a few years ago. To the first missions. To messages sent from Egiptu late in the evening and in the middle of the night. To videos after which you wrote that you didn’t know that a completely different world could exist a few streets away from hotels, pyramids, and holiday routes.

A world of dogs chased away with stones. Dogs that learned to run away at the mere sight of a raised hand. Dogs poisoned, hit by cars, beaten, injured, and disappearing from the streets before anyone could ask where they went.

Today we have to tell you something.

Not because everything has already changed.

Because for the first time in a very long time, we can say that the official direction has changed.

July 17, the Egyptian Minutesistry of Agriculture announced the immediate implementation of a nationwide strategy for street animals. Poisoning is to be stopped. Mass killing is to be stopped. Dogs are not to be accidentally removed and abandoned in other places just because someone finds them bothersome. The state has indicated one official path: catching, sterilization, rabies vaccination, and releasing the animals back into their territory. Legal consequences have been announced for actions carried out outside this system.

For the first time, it was also stated so clearly that street dogs are not waste that needs to be removed from the landscape. That they are part of the environment. That they help reduce the number of rodents and dangerous reptiles. That taking away their water and food does not solve the problem, but can increase fear, desperation, and defensive behaviors.

For some people, this will simply be information read between one message and another.

For us, it’s several years of life.

I remember one day, three and a half or four years ago. Our activists were then on another mission in Egiptu. There were so many stories that we sat and wondered which one to show first. Which dog is more urgent. Which video is more important. Which animal to write about, since a message about the next one was coming in a moment.

There were weeks when almost seven out of ten publications on our board concerned Egiptu. Not because we wanted to keep showing you the same country. Because every day we received more photos from there. More dogs. More wounds. More animals for whom a lack of reaction meant death.

Then for the first time, we showed you places that we started to call the Alley of Death among ourselves. We showed what wasn’t in tourist brochures. What was happening outside the frame of holiday photos. Many of you were shocked. Many asked if this was truly the daily life of these animals.

It did.

And in many places, it still does.

But since then, something else has also happened.
Thanks to you, we saved more dogs. Through our actions, thousands of animals received help, and tens of thousands had something to eat. We financed treatment, examinations, surgeries, and transports. We supported people who acted on the ground when the cameras were gone. We came, returned, documented, and showed a world that many people preferred not to see.
And that’s why we cannot disappear from Egiptu now.
Because the biggest mistake would be to assume that everything has already been taken care of. A document signed by the ministry will not heal any wound. It will not take a hit dog to the vet. It will not feed a pack in the desert. It will not pay for surgery or protect an animal that will be chased away, beaten, or poisoned tomorrow by a person to whom the new rules have not yet reached.

This is still being done by people.
That’s why we are already thinking about further missions, further trips, and further aid transports. We still want to reach places where dogs wait every day for food, treatment, and a human who won’t just pass by. Now we also need to ensure that this change truly reaches the Egyptian streets and doesn’t remain merely a decision written on paper.
Millions of people watched our videos. Not just one million. Millions and more millions. Tens of thousands of people signed our petitions. International campaigns were created. Our English-speaking branch was active. Our people worked on site, our boys, local caregivers, doctors, volunteers, and activists who often had to make decisions in a few minutes.

And behind all of them stood You.

Every person who signed the petition.

Every person who shared the video, even though they couldn’t bear to watch it.

Every person who donated a few zlotys for a dog located thousands of kilometers from Poland.

Every person who wrote a comment, forwarded a message, talked to someone about Egypt, or simply didn’t let the topic disappear along with another dog taken from the street.

Did we alone change the policy of an entire state?

No.

Are we the only organization that fought for this for years?

Of course not.

There are individual local organizations, doctors, feeders, activists, and ordinary residents who for years took animals off the streets, documented poisoning, and opposed mass killing. This is also their victory. This is the result of the work of many people from many countries.

But were your signatures, our materials, international campaigns, millions of reaches, and years of exerting pressure part of this change?

Yes.

And we will not let anyone convince you otherwise.

Because social changes rarely begin with one big event. First, someone records a video. Someone else shares it. Someone signs a petition. Someone asks the authorities a question. Someone shows the world another photo. Someone repeats the same thing for another year, even though they hear that nothing will change.

Until one day, what for years was the cry of organizations and activists becomes the official direction of the state.

That is why today’s gallery is so important to us.

This will not be a gallery of one dog.

You will see animals from several years of our presence in Egypt. Those pulled from the streets. Those treated after being hit. Those whose bones were set, wounds dressed, and bodies ravaged by hunger rebuilt. Dogs that came to us without names, and later became heroes of stories followed by thousands of people.
This is already a hundred saved lives.

Each of them was once just one dog among millions. One photo. One phone call. One decision made in the evening or in the middle of the night.
But it was from such individual decisions that something bigger emerged.
And we would like someone to be able to say in a few years that it was then that everything truly began to change.
However, it won’t happen by itself.
Further trips will still be needed. Doctors, feeders, volunteers, and people documenting what happens on the streets will still be needed. Funds for food, treatment, operations, transports, sterilizations, and vaccinations will still be needed. Dogs will still appear that no strategy will manage to protect from a car, hunger, disease, or human cruelty.

That is why this hundred cannot be the end of our presence in Egypt.
We want to save more animals. We want to support further missions and reach more places where one bowl of food, one visit to the clinic, or one quick decision can determine a dog’s entire life. And for us to be able to do this, we still need you by our side.
Today, Egypt officially states that the answer to the presence of dogs cannot be poison or mass killing. That animals should be sterilized, vaccinated, and allowed to return to their territory. That unauthorized actions outside the adopted system should face consequences. This is one of the first such unambiguous state decisions regarding street animals in this country.

However, we will not pretend that from tomorrow no dog in Egypt will be hit.

We will not write that with one announcement, the cruelty that has been part of everyday street life for years will disappear. The strategy written on paper must still survive the clash with reality. It must be enforced. Sterilization programs, vaccinations, controls, and real consequences must be established. People must learn that the rules have changed.
That’s why we’re not stopping.
We will keep an eye on the authorities. We will document. We will support people on the ground. We will react to further cases and check if big words are followed by real actions.
We will also return.
With food. With help for doctors and local activists. With further actions, thanks to which an animal found on the street will not have to wait for someone to accidentally stop for it. Because even the best strategy cannot replace a person who appears there at the right moment, takes the dog off the road, takes it to a clinic, and stays with it for the next few weeks.
If you have supported our activities in Egiptu throughout all these years, stay with us now too. Support further missions, further trips, feeding, treatment, and rescuing those dogs whose lives are still playing out far from official announcements and cameras.
Because helping doesn’t end at Poland’s borders.
Animals have no nationality. They don’t know which side of the map they were born on. They don’t understand why the suffering of one dog should be more important just because it happened closer to our home.

We still have many places on the map that we want to change. In Poland, too, there is a huge amount of work every day. But one does not exclude the other. You can rescue here and fight there. You can build a shelter in Poland and at the same time make someone on an Egiptu street think twice before reaching for poison.

Today, we want you to pause for a moment with these photos and see in them not only the animals that were helped.
See in them years of shared work.
See every petition, every trip, every share, every transport, every bowl placed on the street, and every dog taken from there before it was too late.
You were there.
You were in every donation. In every signature. In every piece of material that, thanks to you, reached further than we ever imagined.
This change does not belong to one foundation, one organization, or one name.
It belongs to all the people who, for years, did not agree that poison should be the answer to a dog’s existence.

Thank you for everything we have managed to achieve together.
But we don’t want this text to be a summary.
We want it to be the beginning of the next stage.
If you believe, as we do, that this change must truly happen, stay with us. Support further missions, further trips, and hundreds more dogs that are still waiting for help every day. Help us fund food, treatment, operations, sterilizations, vaccinations, and the actions of people who are on site when one animal no longer has time to wait for the entire system to change.
Because although today we can speak of a big step forward, there are still hundreds of lives ahead of us for whom this fight is just beginning.
Egiptu is changing.
Let’s ensure together that this change doesn’t just remain on paper.