Chennai

The event was held as a part of celebrating three years of animal welfare by PFCI and it marks the first ever annual celebration for animal welfare in Southern India. Jayanthi IAS (Retd.), Member, State Human Rights Commission; Dr S Chinny Krishna, Vice-Chairman, Animal Welfare Board of India and G Arun Prasanna, Founder, PFCI, presided over the function.

The invite-only event had animal loving participants from various walks of life. The award ceremony was followed by a crash course on animal laws and a workshop on animal welfare. “In a first of its kind initiative, around 50 policemen were trained in handling cases related to animal cruelty and we plan to organise many such workshops in future,” says G. Arun Prasanna.

These programmes were handled by experienced and leading animal advocates who trained the participants in handling animal cruelty issues especially in coordinating with law enforcement officials.

PFCI Awards for Animal Welfare 2015 nominations were broadly based on notable work in the sphere of animal protection and advocacy and the award winners were chosen by a panel of eminent jury members from PFCI. Awards were presented to actor Vishal Krishna (Face of Animal Activism – 2015) for his active endorsement of animal causes and for taking up some serious animal welfare issues; actor Varalakshmi Sarathkumar (Best celebrity campaigner – 2015) for leading and trending the ‘Waterbowl Challenge’ campaign in social media which helped provide water to scores of thirsty birds; Human Society International – India (Most admired NGO - 2015) for various rare animal welfare work; Blue Cross of India (Best Initiative in Animal Welfare – The Waterbowl Project), Surya from SPAAAK (Emerging leader Animal Welfare – 2015) and Nisha Singh (Best community Animal Care Taker – 2015) for feeding hundreds of dogs every day for the past 10 years.

People For Cattle in India (PFCI) is an ISO Certified NGO formed in 2012 to control unlicensed cattle trafficking and Slaughters. PFCI has rescued close to 1200 cattle from cattle traffickers and slaughter. PFCI has also reached out to help and save several dogs, cats, horses, monkeys,donkeys, camels, birds and snakes etc from cruel treatment and abuse.