We worked with an already formed group of 6 young people in Middlesbrough over 5 weeks developing an idea of what they would like to campaign about. The group expressed how they wanted to help dog shelters because people “get dogs for christmas then by March they are wanting to get rid of them because they are bored or have realised they are a lot of work”.
The young people decided they want to donate items to help out Maxi’s Mates Rescue and Rehoming Centre which is a charity located in Dunsdale as the centre had been expressing on facebook that they are now at full capacity with dogs and they are struggling to feed and home them all. The young people designed a poster which states statistics of dogs that are in shelters, and they added quotes like “save a life, adopt a shelter dog today”.
The young people wanted to make the poster really powerful and have people think about the issue. The poster has been shared across our social media and has been put in shop windows to help widen the campaign and spread awareness. We then decided what we wanted to donate to the shelter, this included; dog food, toys, lots of treats, tennis balls and much more.
When we went to the shelter to donate the items, the staff were very thankful and said “I am so happy that young people are wanting to make a difference to the lives of the sheltered dogs and young people are aware of the issues happening with people buying dogs and getting bored of them”.