Cat Shelter Updates

Street action 2007, 2008

April 2005 - April 2007
We finally moved from our 2nd shelter in orhaniye to datca road shelter in april 2005, even though it was as stressfull as ever, we were excited to be at our own place at last, and thanks to all the donations of the people of germany, we had quite a good start there............
1. one large enclosure with very large open cage housing all the little cages for individual beds,
2. two 2-roomed containers for kitchen, clinic, depot, sick room and toilet.
3. one smaller enclosure for the dogs
it was a good start, and being closer to marmaris it was much easier than ever before. at last i had easy access to the shelter and also to marmaris where i could continue my work with the actual street cats.

it was also easier for people to find us and we had quite a few visitors that first summer, i just wish that i had had a camera to capture and remember everyone that visited us, still, you all have a place in my heart if not in my memory!

during the first summer, ther wasnt much financial help so nothing changed very much so we just muddled on. We still had help from some of the big hotels such as the Mares Hotel, Lidya Hotel and the Grand Azure where we had tip boxes. it was due to the tipbox in the Grand Azure that brought us our most amazing and outstanding sponcer IRIS from Holland.

IRIS OF HOLLAND
at the end of the summer of 2004, i had a phonecall from the hotel asking me to come and talk to a customer of theirs, IRIS and her mum had found a tiny kitten down under the foundations of the hotel.

Iris had bravely climbed down and rescued this little wild thing with just a small hand towel, it was completely blind the problem was that they were leaving the next day to return to holland and didnt know what to do with the kitten, this is where i came in................. i took the kitten home to my bedroom, bathed the eyes, and used antibiotic drops the help with the massive infection.

after leaving a small donation iris and her mum left, i didnt have a contact number for them but i had given them my website adress. all through that last winter in orhaniye the kitten named korkiz (blind girl) thrived and became a beautiful gutsy young ladyshe wasnt afraid of anything, it was just a shame that i couldnt contact iris and let her know that the kitten had survived and thrived.

so, i had a lovely suprise one day a the begginning of the summer 2005 when i had a call from holland, yes it was the mother of iris, they were coming again to marmaris. i couldnt wait for them to see korkiz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but i had even more amazing news to recieve!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! iris had indeed visited our website and immediately decided that she wanted to do something, so all winter she fundraised and collected free offers of food so much so that when she arrived at the shelter she had 350 euros and 350 sachets of whiskas kitten food, also a dossier full of all the photos of her activities.............

i was reduced to tears at the enormity of what this 10/11 year old child had acomplished!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

everybody who saw the dossier was also filled with awe.
THIS WAS THE BEGGINNING OF A WONDERFUL FREINDSHIP

it was a wonderful week, iris got completely involved in the day to day running of the shelter.....cleaning cat toilets, feeding and grooming of the cats, nothing was too great for this little girl from holland.
they left with the promise to return at the end of october 2005 again

IRIS AND THE MAYOR OF ARMUTALAN - MOHAMED UNLU
during the end of that first summer, the mayor of armutalan (a suberb of marmaris), started to show interest in the shelter, this of course was due to Behcet Duzgun, our vet, as he was on the commitee of the municipality. the mayor was impressed with what he had found out about the shelter from behcet, so much so that he gave me permission to have a fundraising stall anywhere i choose within the boundaries of armutalan. this was a great breakthrough!!!!!!!!!!!

this is when i had the idea of helping everyone, i wanted to get iris together with the mayor and thank them both at the same time. i went to see the mayor (his door was always open to me, what an honour) and i showed him iris's dossier. to say that he was impressed was an understatement, he was bowled over and immediately agreed to meet iris so that he could show her his appreciation. a date was set during the october holiday. it was a lovely day. iris presented the mayor with a dutch porcellein cow and he a special municpality plate in gold leaf. i spent most of the day crying it was so so emotional to see these two very special people who couldnt exchange a word but could exchange memorable feelings with eachother and everyone else in that room including the press and tv. the press then wanted to take photos of them at the shelter. this was my chance to actually show the mayor what we had achieved so far.

when we arrived at the shelter, the mayor was indeed impressed, he couldnt believe that we had created such a wonderful shelter without to support of the government and promised faithfully to support us as much as possible. and he has!!!!!!!!!!!