How I became an activist

There is a point in time when hitting one's head against the nearest wall to fix a minor issue just won't cut it anymore. A moment arrives when one just needs to go in search of a distant rock, mountain - a wall afar? It happened to me years ago when I was a managing member of the local animal shelter. The stray dog situation in Tobago was appalling. People kept dogs cats too as a matter of convenience, even whim. Many were discarded in pretty much the same way. Matters came to a head when our tiny operation just had to 'euthanise' those least likely to be rehomed. Its true. Faced with feeding almost 200 pooches, close to the same amount of cats and with little money aside from member subscription, gifts and the few cents earned from boarding pets while their people traveled, we decided to kill anything brown, female, runty, ugly.... well you get the idea. If we hadn't the whole 'sanctuary' would have collapsed. 

Turned out it fell to me to take the dead little bodies to the landfill. Oh yeh if it were now I'd have channeled my reaction to a dip in the old pocketbook, lifted out some blues and bought me a contraband AR-15 bumpstock and all. Would probably have used it to if then was now. But I digress. Suffering from intense depression (is what I meant too say) and absolutely devastated by the Tobagonian community's lack of action to our calls for responsible pet ownership I decided to go seek that distant wall . I ended up parting from the shelter in spirit tho I stayed on in a quasi-active state. I was a director no less, but one for whom the fire had gone dormant. 

Yet the need to be involved wouldn't disappear. I was aware of a fledgling (at the time) environment movement - largely a save the tree thing. But these people were getting results from the community. Good I thought. Let's join up with them and link the causes. Pretty intuitive right? Tree, dogs, cats. What hard math was that? Dogs piss on tree, cats climb trees and tree need .... I shit you not. It was all I really knew about 'environment'. But I wanted was a new place, new people with whom to share my animal problems. I thought if the shelter's cause could be integrated into the NGO movement. Traction was what I was looking for. (disclaimer: It was Environment Tobago ) 

The rest is of course history - my personal history. I learned formal terms for things/knowledge passed to me as a country lad. What I didn't know I read about; environmentalists are big on documentation. A lot has transpired in the years since I left left TSPCA needless to say. Among the more intriguing developments I've been exposed too is the growth and acceptance of civil society in matters governance. Yes, these are grand terms, inescapable to the extent that everyone I have contact with uses them. Saves time taken to make the point doesn't it? But today I'm thinking. Terms aside have I been effective in chasing my primary goal? Did I achieve anything for the dogs cats and other animals who live in Tobago? 

I've been guilty to a great extent of broadening the scope of my ambitions - possibly to horizons well outside my reach. I'm now the head of an organisation which was once just a tree-hugger group. Today we talk for instance a lot about good governance. We discuss the elements of people control therein, like accountability, advocacy, publicity, policy. You know, Things. It also bothers me somewhat that I do not spend time as I once did with stray dogs, cats, wounded birds you know, Animals. But I've also reached a point, know for a fact that I've reached my far wall. If I thought it was hard to convince Tobagonians to take care of - treat their animals humanely, I see where people the world over need convincing heaps and measures more to take care of the planet. Which I suspect is going to be harder than saving a few pooches.