This promotional project 'Friends of Safe Haven Egypt' started over a year ago. Unsure if it would lead anywhere. Whether it would be useful. Some form of success.
In one year, 45 profiles were posted. Each week, 5 different adoptable cats are posted in various cat Facebook groups over a 5-week period. There is also an account on Instagram, Twitter and Mastodon.
It is estimated that this project resulted in about 10 adoptions. Since some people find SHE's cats through this promotional project but contact SHE directly, this is not always clear.
This website has been expanded and there are plans to further improve it. See for example the page Isn't this a scam? where you can also find a YouTube review of SHE and the page Reviews from adopters.
The number of visitors to this website is still very modest. But the traffic is increasing slowly. And with the relevant search terms, this website scores well in the search results.
To enter the 2nd year of operation, there is now a new logo for 'Friends of Safe Haven Egypt'. The old one wasn't really bad, but a logo with a clipart cat looking angry was certainly not ideal.
Update 01/10/2024 10:55 PM: Aubrey has been found. She is with Koky. – There is now active cooperation from the airport to find the 2 other cats. Source; (private) SHE Facebook group; (English) https://vermeir.org/flight985update2
Every day, a whole group of people work hard to provide a safe place for the cats staying in the Safe Haven Egypt shelter. And they look for a suitable adoptive family.
Koky, the manager, always lets the online SHE community know what is going on.
A few days ago she posted a message that support was still needed to enable the transport of 12 SHE cats to the United States of America. – The generous community raised the resources. – Everyone was happy and enthusiastic about the impending departure.
A little later came a photo of the transport boxes; our 12 SHE cats were now effectively leaving!
We welcome then at the haven with smile love and care and when they leave us we say good bye and we wish them all the happiness
SHE cats starting their journey, photo for illustration
On Friday, September 29, our cats left the Haven on their adventure. To Cairo airport and then New York, USA!
Unfortunately, it turned out to be a nightmare.
The departure was just like usual. The cats were properly checked in for their flight
Flight 985, Cairo to New York (JFK).
Our 12 cats traveled together with the cats from another cat shelter.
Broken transport box
Seven(!) hours after the plane – as far as known – had left safely with the cats, the message came that 'something' had gone wrong.
Very wrong.
Somehow the transport boxes fell. All boxes were damaged.
Three SHE cats escaped at the airport. And also two cats from the other cat shelter. – So five cats loose at an airport.
Our blind boy Angus was finally found. He drank some water and then died.
Angus, killed
Good news is that SHE cat Shadia has been found and is now safe and sound at Koky's home.
There is no news yet from Aubrey. He is still missing.
Update 01/10/2024 10:55 PM: Aubrey has been found. She is with Koky.
The two cats from the other shelter are also still missing. Update 09/10/2023: One of the two has been found (and is fine), one non-SHE cat still remains missing.
So this all happened before the plane took off. The surviving cats were placed on the plane in their damaged boxes. Some transport boxes patched with adhesive tape.
Aubrey,missing SHE catFOUND IT!
When the local SHE volunteer came to pick up the cats at the airport in the USA, they were outside in the pouring rain. Which was probably lucky.
The doors of two transport boxes were missing. The cats were still in there. Apparently too scared to run away.
Safe Haven Egypt was only informed 7 hours after the incident. It was not possible to clarify what exactly happened.
The 1st missing cat from the other cat shelterFOUND IT!
Those transport boxes are very sturdy. They don't just break from a simple fall. After insistence, there was nothing more than a weak apology and 'that these things happen'.
Unable to obtain information or cooperation from the airport, the airline Egypt Air or the shipping agent.
We didn't get Angus' body back. Airport employees buried him at the airport. This way we cannot investigate what exactly he died from.
The SHE community is sad and in shock. This – or anything even remotely similar – has never happened before.
We are angry too.
Missing, 2nd cat from the other cat shelter
How could such a fragile cargo be handled so negligently? – Why did it take 7 hours to let us know??!!
This also means that Koky and anyone she could round up could not search for the missing cats. Because they didn't know anything.
This is therefore a call to everyone who is well disposed towards Safe Haven Egypt and actually all cat shelter initiatives to put pressure on EgyptAir to help find the 3 missing cats.
And to investigate this thoroughly so that this cannot happen again.
Help bring this to attention through your available social media channels!
Update Sunday October 1: This Facebook post from Nada Saad (ENG) gives a more factual account of the situation, https://vermeir.org/flight985update
Safe Haven Egypt takes in approximately 250 cats in its shelter, the 'Haven'.
The cats for adoption are on this website and on the Facebook group 'Safe Haven Egypt – Cats for adoption'. But there are actually many more cats than this small selection of cats for which there is a profile. The 'warehouse cats'.
This page contains 48 photos of blind warehouse cats. A look behind the scenes of the many, many 'invisible' cats that do not have an adoption profile.
Blind cats do not require any special care. They function perfectly as a house cat.
Safe Haven Egypt takes in about 250 cats at its shelter, the 'Haven'.
The cats for adoption are listed on this website (in Dutch) and on the facebook group 'Safe Haven Egypt – Cats for adoption'. But actually there are many more cats than this small selection of cats for which there is a profile. The 'backroom cats'.
On this page are 48 photos of blind backroom cats. A behind-the-scenes look at the many, many 'invisible' cats that do not have an adoption profile.
Blind cats need no special care. They function perfectly well as domestic cats.
Safe Haven Egypt has been a shelter for street cats since 2015. These cats therefore reside in Egypt. The people who adopt the cats are almost always from Western Europe and North America.
For adopters in Flanders or the Netherlands, the cats must travel from Egypt, near Cairo, to this region. This is only possible by plane.
So this is what it is for flight parents necessary. This is a traveler who will fly from an airport near Cairo to a destination in the area where the cat's adopter lives. And who wants to take this cat with him as 'extra luggage'.
Safe Haven Egypt ensures that the cat is present in a regulatory transport box on time at the time of the traveler's departure. That all papers for the cat are in order, such as the very recent certificate of negative rabies test.
Safe Haven Egypt buys the cat a plane ticket to the flight parent's destination in the name of the flight parent.
The duties of a flight parent include agreeing with SHE about when to travel and making practical arrangements to meet each other and transfer the cat(s) at the airport.
And then check in the cats under his or her name. In the context of the flight, the SHE cats are the flight parent's cats. Upon arrival at the destination airport, the adopter will await the flight parent to receive the cat. A chat group will be created for this purpose so that the flight parent and the adopter can meet with each other.
In order to carry out transport from Egypt to Flanders specifically, we are looking for people who will travel from Cairo to Schiphol or Brussels Airport. Ideally on a regular basis. And be open to the idea of taking on the role of flight parent on a voluntary basis.
Are you a traveler who is going to travel from Cairo, Egypt to Belgium or the Netherlands and you are open to the idea?
Then it would be a great help if you would consider this. We understand that this is a delicate matter.
The start was difficult because the message was stuck for moderation for several days without any apparent reason. But when I finally got a response from the group administrator, I had a nice chat. Got permission to post and even an 'auto-approve' for that group so my posts go straight to group.
I now had a group with 5.3k members where I could post in the SHE cats. Nice! – Could there be other Dutch-language 'adopt a cat' Facebook groups?
Yes. – Currently I have a list of 27 places I can post to. These include this website, a Twitter account and the rest are “adoptive cat Facebook groups.” Some are very small, some are very large with more than 10,000 members.
To post with a FB message if the cat is no longer available
We succeeded through such a post Dylan find a candidate adopter. That's great of course. It was noticeable that there was much more attention for Dylan, an Egyptian Mau, than for all the other cats, who, although certainly beautiful, were more 'normal'. At this time there are 5 cats up for adoption on this website.
The promotion of Pudding and Rosie has been completed correctly. The promotion runs in March Nemo, Tessa and Bertie further. Molly is in the queue. A schedule has now been made for posting the messages. The intention is to post 3 different SHE cats in a different place every day. With a total lead time per cat of 4 weeks to be posted everywhere.
I'm actually quite happy with how things are going. Being able to give one cat a home during the first month, the start-up phase, is fine. This website now also shows up in Google on the first page when you search for 'cat adoption Egypt' and 'safe haven Egypt', which is not bad. Visitor numbers are of course low for this website, but not 0.
And literally in the last few days, several questions have been received about the SHE-cats, no new adoption proposals yet, but that's how it will start.
If anyone has any tips on where I can/may post advertising posts of SHE cats, please let me know! Each post also has buttons to share that message, post it, via personal channels. That is of course also very welcome!
NL