My name is Chiara, and for the past 4 years I have dedicated my life to running Riza Animal Sanctuary in Portugal — a forever home for rescued farmed animals who had nowhere else to go.

We currently care for 60 animals: sheep, goats, pigs, donkeys, chickens , cats and dogs. Animals who were exploited, abandoned, or born into a system that saw them as products. Here, they are family.

We bought a new land and we need to move as soon as possible. And we need your help to do it.

Why we're moving:

Our current land it has a massive inclination and it becomes dangerous during the rain season. The mud makes it unsafe for the animals , the slippery muddy conditions put them at real risk.

We tried many things to solve this problem until was clear there was nothing else to do, so we bought new land — almost 3 hectares, six times the space our animals have now. Room to run, graze, and finally live the life they deserve.

And it's not just the animals already with us. We also have 2 cows, 1 horse, and 1 pig who are currently being hosted elsewhere, waiting for the new land to be ready so they can finally join the sanctuary.

The problem:

To make the new land habitable for the animals by the end of June, we need to build:

~ 8 shelters — wooden structures with proper roofing and insulation

~ 8 wooden gates

~ Facilities for our volunteers — a compost toilet and shower

~ build or buy a storage unit for hay and grains.

We need at least €10,000 to make this happen.

We purchased the land through a mortgage — the only way we could afford it was to buy a property with a house on it, since agricultural land doesn't qualify for a mortgage. We are already committed to 25 years of repayments.

If we don't raise this money in time, we will need to take out another loan. For a small sanctuary running on donations and volunteer work, that risk could be devastating.

What your donation means:

Every euro goes directly into building materials and construction. Not admin. Not salaries. Straight into the land.

€10 buys timber for a shelter wall

€50 contributes to a full gate

€200 helps build a complete shelter

€500 funds an entire structure from ground to roof

No amount is too small. Every contribution brings 60 animals — and the ones waiting to come home — one step closer to safety.

Who we are:

Riza Animal Sanctuary was founded in 2019 and since 2022 it's been entirely run by volunteers. No salaries. No big organisation behind us. Just a group of people who fell in love with a bunch of animals and couldn't walk away.

We look after 60 animals. Sixty. Sheep, goats, pigs, donkey, chickens , cats and dogs— each one with a name, a personality, and a story

Like Reed, the lamb we bottle fed through the night for weeks. He slept in our bed. We didn't sleep much. Or Øfi, a overweight pig who spent 4 years alone in an apartment and now runs through grass every morning like he can't quite believe it's real. There's Petunia, an elderly sheep who was exploited her whole life ( 13 years) and now just eats alfalfa kissed by the sun. Luna, a young pig who was heading to slaughter at 7 months old, saved because of her arthritis — the thing that made her "useless" to the industry brought her straight to us. And Merlin, a bottle-fed kid goat with brain damage who is somehow, against all odds, doing just fine and stealing everyone's hearts.

This is our family. And right now our family needs a home.