Cats shelter construction in Monteria, Colombia

Hi there!! The Happy Whiskers Cat Shelter (Casa Gatuna Bigotes Felices) needs your help to build a safer place for cats!! See our story below.

Happy Whiskers is a small shelter that cares for 43 cats and 2 dogs. It is located in Monteria, Colombia, a small city in the Caribbean region of Colombia, where the overpopulation of cats leads to their abandonment on a daily routine. The shelter was founded by Martha 10 years ago. She is a lovely woman who has dedicated her life to rescue cats from the streets and to look after each one of them with so much love and care that they are renown for being so cheery and playful (hence the name “Happy Whiskers”).

Martha has maintained the shelter mostly with her own resources and efforts, and through donations from a small group of people who recognise her hard work. Unfortunately, Martha and the cats are going through difficult times lately due to circumstances out of their control.

The cat shelter has been in the same place for about 4 years, in the countryside of Monteria, and they had managed on their own until last year when they started to have some issues. Firstly with a few dogs in the neighbourhood that are constantly getting into the house and attacking the cats, even in spite of all the efforts that Martha has taken to fix the fence - and the efforts of Lucas and Kathy (Martha’s dogs) to keep the cats safe - everytime the neighbour’s dogs see the opportunity, they attack and injure the cats. Martha even suspects that they are responsible for the disappearance of three cats one day that simply never returned. 

Second is with the local water service. Since Happy Whiskers is located in the countryside, there have been issues with reliable water supply to the cat shelter that has not been resolved. Sometimes Martha and the cats can go without water for weeks, even months, which makes house maintenance and looking after the cats very difficult.  

For these reasons, Martha has searched for another place and has found one that has all the open space that the cats need and which is much safer as it is surrounded by sturdy, solid walls. However, Martha still needs to build an actual shelter for the cats to protect them from the elements like sun, wind and rain; and to give them a place to sleep in safety.

We are raising money to cover the cost of materials for the construction of cheniles and for the shelter at the new location, and to install the barriers needed to prevent our furry friends from intruding on the neighbour’s property.

We have set 2,000 AUD as our target, which we estimate will be enough to buy all the materials, pay for labour and to help Martha with some cat food. We are expecting to collect them by the end of August as Martha will start to move next month.  

Attached you can see the pictures of some of the lovely cats and the shelter we intend to build so that we can offer them a better quality of life.