By Wahida Fitriah
GOMBAK 27 March 2020: Despite the outbreak of COVID-19, the welfare of stray cats in IIUM campus has been well taken care of by the IIUM Student Union with the collaboration of Abu Hurairah Animal Society in ensuring that these animals are not left behind starving.
Before this, those cats relied on the benevolence of the students to help them to fill their empty stomach. However, after 85% of IIUM students returned home following the Movement Control Order (MCO) declared on 18 March, the cats were having difficulties to gain food for several days.
Therefore, IIUM Student Union recently posted a tweet calling for donations in order to feed the stray cats around IIUM campus as well as to provide other necessities for them. The poster was created to bring attention to the people on the issue faced by the cats.
Within a short period of time, the tweet received a lot of responses from people who gave their phone number through direct message on Twitter. The group chat was created among them in order to allow easier communication.
Following that, quite a sum of money was raised by the fund to accommodate the needs of the cats such as dry food as well as to cover the medical bills for the injured cats.
Even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the MCO, there were still people who volunteered themselves to help distribute the goods and feed the cats.
Right now, there are 45 volunteers and at least one or two persons is in charge at every mahallah. Besides, they also provide standby drivers in case there are injured cats.
According to Zamzamil, the Exco for Welfare and International of IIUM Student Union, the project on feeding the stray cats was easy to conduct because of the passion and sincerity showed by the students towards the hungry cats. He also emphasised that “motivation is one of the biggest factors to get anything done and there is plenty of that here.”
The collaboration between IIUM Student Union and the Abu Hurairah Animal Society has successfully provided assistance to hundreds of stray cats in IIUM campus here. ***
Source: says.com