Hi, my name is Josephin. I am a volunteer and animal-welfare advocate living in Italy, and I am involved in various activism and charity programs for different animal sanctuaries.

While visiting Yogyakarta, a city in Indonesia, I volunteered with the grassroots team at Animal Friends Jogja (AFJ), a trusted local organisation working tirelessly to support the city’s countless street animals.

In Yogyakarta, I witnessed animals being abandoned, injured, starving, and giving birth on the streets daily. This suffering is widespread and ongoing— and knowing we have the power to help them through AFJ breaks my heart. That’s why I started this fundraiser…

AFJ provides one of the few humane responses through daily feeding, medical care, rescue, and a Trap–Neuter–Release (TNR) program that prevents countless animals from being born into suffering.

Every day, AFJ volunteers feed hundreds of hungry animals, treat the sick and injured ones, support pregnant mothers, rescue abandoned babies, and carry out sterilisation work across the city. Yet the scale of the crisis continues to grow. There are now hundreds of thousands of stray cats in Yogyakarta, and the number continues to increase each year.

Many of these animals come from low-income households that cannot afford veterinary care. Spaying a single female cat costs nearly half of the city’s monthly minimum wage, placing sterilisation completely out of reach for most families. Without affordable options, breeding continues unchecked, and stray populations expand across streets, public spaces, and residential areas. With very limited resources, AFJ has been able to spay and neuter around 1,700 cats annually — an important effort, but far from enough to meet the need.

AFJ receives no government funding and relies entirely on donations. As an example, monthly costs exceed €7,000 just to maintain the TNR program for approximately 150 cats.

In recent months, local donations have dropped drastically as the economic situation continues to decline for much of the population. People who once supported this work are no longer able to do so. As a result, AFJ cannot sustain the program through local funding alone.

Without urgent external support, essential services will be forced to scale back or stop — and the immediate result will be more animals left unfed, untreated, and born into suffering on the streets.

This fundraiser is not about expansion. It is about preventing a proven, humane program from collapsing at a critical moment. Your support now directly determines whether this life-saving work can continue.

Please donate today. You’re helping kind, hardworking local rescuers continue their mission alive and build a kinder city for both animals and people.

Please also share this campaign, spread the word, and be part of this beautiful change— one spay and neuter at a time. It’s impossible to do this without you!

With love and much gratitude,

Josephin, Animal Friends Jogja, and all the strays on the streets who deserve love, care, and protection.