Several teens support the Soweto Animal Rescue and Advisory Centre (SARAC) by keeping an eye out for animals in the township and reporting cases to them. These teens are known as Jerry’s Rangers.
Soweto, South Africa – Jerry set up the Soweto Animal Rescue and Advisory Centre (SARAC) to help educate the community about animal welfare. He used all of his life, saving to make a difference. Over the years, he has seen great success in the change of attitude towards animal care.
One of the programmes he runs at SARAC is called “Jerry’s Rangers”. Being a non-profit, Jerry has to rely on the help of his community to find out about animal abuse and neglect cases. This is where his rangers come in. Jerry trains young men and women to keep an eye out for animals in the community. Should there be any problems, they report their findings to Jerry, who then jumps into action.
SARAC works to educate and uplift the community. They are showing the importance of having compassion for animals. Jerry’s rangers all come from difficult backgrounds where they have very little. They work closely with Jerry and become role models for other children within their sectors.
Through his animal charity, he is working with the leaders of tomorrow and changing lives.
FNB recently invited Jerry’s Rangers to their Shop of Hope. The shop is run as an internal project for the corporation and each week; an employee gets to select a charity to shop. The shop is stocked with essential food items and a few luxuries. When a charity is invited to go shopping, they are each given an amount of ‘hope bucks’ which they can use however they please.
Jerry’s rangers all used their hope bucks for food to feed their families. The shop is designed to give people the dignity of a shopping experience without the shame of not having much. Through the use of vouchers, people invited to the shops get to have an experience that is so normal to the rest of us.
The young rangers were all also given new smartphones to help them connect with Jerry when they spot animals in need. According to Jerry, when the teens arrived back home after their shopping trip, their parents cried to see that they all bought food for the family.
Check out some of the photos in the slideshow below:
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