About Us
In April 2019, my partner David and I saw an article in the Guardian about Leros, a quiet Greek island in the Dodecanese. At first sight we fell in love with the beautiful neoclassical houses, and we bought one as a holiday home.
In August 2020, with another lockdown looming in London and the advantages of working remotely, we decided to move from London to Leros and make it our new home.
As cat lovers, we could not ignore the distressing conditions in which the street cats survive and often die. Being run over by a car is very sad but, presently in Leros, it is a quick painless death, often ending a life of trauma, suffering and misery.
Isabelle & David with rescue cat Ginge
In October 2019 we saved 2 kittens: Ginge and Tonic, in July 2020: kitten Maestro, lady cat Marmalade, kitten Lucia, …now we have 25 cats in the house including 6 kittens and 15 garden cats.
Garden cats have special protected kennels, and the laundry has been converted to provide an extra cat house with heating in the winter.
Quickly, we realised the magnitude of the task we had on our hands, so we decided to establish a charitable foundation to collect funds to continue and expand our street cat rescue campaign.
After an unfruitful 2021 trying to create a UK cat foundation we finally turned to the Greek side and after a long 6 months we finally established a none-profit Greek company in June 2022, the Greek equivalent of a UK charitable foundation.
Now we have a bank account so we can receive funds to support saving street cats and give them a good loving home within Greece and the wider Europe!
At present we are self-financing the cat rescue operation – but with limited means we can only save the cats in and around the little town of Lakki. With additional funds we plan to expand our rescue work to the other main areas of the island: Agia Marina, Alinda, Xerocampos, Camara, Pandeli, the
hospital area and refugees’ centre area.
Whilst some locals have a real love for the lerian cats and take great care of them as one of their family, others still do following:
- kill cats with rat poison (a truly horrific death);
- throw new-born kittens in the rubbish bins;
- abandon pregnant cats in a remote area; or
- dump unwanted cats and kittens in one of our feeding stations.
In April 2022 I found 3 kittens around 15 days old just dumped in one of my feeding stations by the ‘tennis courts. Thankfully the ‘tennis director bottle fed them for 2 months and recently placed them in another feeding station: regretfully he could not find a good, loving home.
Finding a good, loving home in Leros is practically impossible partly because all the cat-lovers have cats already, partly because many locals prefer dogs, using them mostly as guard dogs.
Cats when “adopted” by locals live outside, but winters in Leros can be fierce, with rain, damp, even snow and temperature feeling like minus 6 degrees, garden cats can easily get pneumonia.
So, we are now looking to find good loving homes within Greece and the wider Europe.
Currently our campaign to save the street cats keeps 2 locals employed part time. Our aim is to save more street cats and give full time employment to local people. If cats are seen as a source of good jobs, the locals’ perception of street cats should hopefully improve.
Our purpose: we save street cats and kittens from starvation and illness as well as placing cats and kittens for adoption within Greece and wider Europe.
On Tuesdays we catch lady cats for sterilisation to stabilise an overgrowing cat population. Often locals discard new-borns and kittens in the trash can, where without intervention they will die a painful and slow death.