Meet the woman on a mission to Ukraine to help thousands of injured and sick cats and dogs
Passionate Vijay will drive animal ambulance in war-torn Ukraine
A North East woman is flying to Ukraine on a mission to help the country’s desperate population of sick and injured animals.
Vijay Kritzinger, who lives in Washington and works in Newcastle, will be teaming up with the NOWZAD organisation in an unidentified part of the country on a new mobile animal clinic.
She will join the animal ambulance and help the team of a veterinary nurse and medic which will be treating dogs and cats injured by shrapnel.
The team will also be making sure animals are given inoculations against rabies, distemper, and parvo.
Vijay, whose work could include driving the ambulance, said: “I have a passion for helping animals with what they go through in a war zone. They don’t have a voice and Ukraine is inundated with strays.”
The war in Ukraine is in its fourth year and people are not the only casualties of the conflict.
Vijay is a huge backer of causes in the North East. She is a support group leader with North East Animals Asia which organises the Big Bear beach cleans in Sunderland and South Tyneside.
The Animals Asia Foundation is a charity which works to improve animal welfare in Asia.
She is a volunteer with the Sunderland-based Pawz for Thought which is a charity handling more than 1,000 animals a year. The cause has supported her with donations including syringes for her work in Ukraine.
And Vijay also works with NOWZAD which is named after the town of 'Now Zad' in Helmand Province, Afghanistan where Royal Marines helped stray dogs.
South African-born Vijay came to the UK when her husband got the opportunity to work in Scotland where they stayed for 8 years in the Glasgow area.
He then got a job with Nissan in Sunderland and the couple have been in the North East ever since. Vijay said: “I love Sunderland.”
Vijay is employed as a graphic and digital designer in the North East but will be spending time in Ukraine and people can support the causes she loves as follows;