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00:02 COMM: British couple Jean and Bob Harrison
have devoted their retirement to nursing poorly donkeys back to health in India. using their
pensions and donations, they care for around eighty of the animals, injured laboured on
Delhi's building sites and brick kilns.
00:19 COMM : Jean was inspired to start the project
during a family holiday to India, where she witnessed one horses plight.
00:27 JEAN: The owner was whipping this horse and
it just couldn't move, and when we looked at the poor old horse it was so thin. And
I said to my daughter "Oh I'd love to come back here and help these animals."
00:42 COMM: Since setting up the first sanctuary
in 1998 Delhi's skyline has boomed, with much of the backbreaking work carried out by humble
donkeys. Their owners often overwork them in the scorching heat, but the couple from
Essex are fighting to change things.
00:58 BOB: Treating them causes both of us pleasure
because we know it can achieve something for the donkey.
01:06 COMM: They use a donated ambulance where they
visit building sites where they provide care for donkeys in need of urgent treatment. But
often some are so badly injured they need special care at the couple's sprawling 35
acre refuge.
01:20 JEAN: They come in and we look at them and
they're so thin and old, then we say very sorry owner but your donkey is in retirement.
01:33 COMM: Some of the injuries ca be horrific.
01:36 BOB: There's a female donkey who came to us
about three days ago from an organisation in Faridabad, um we don't know how the injury
happened but the ear had been completely severed. Maybe by one of those work shovels, or maybe
via a machine.
01:59 COMM: With a little love and attention, many
of the donkey's in the Harrison's care will be back to full health, and ready to be re-homed
soon. But their battle against cruelty is almost never ending.
02:11 JEAN: As long as I can help a donkey or any
animal, that's all that matters to me. Never want to give up. I shall stay here until it's
absolutely complete.