Role Models: Tash, Vet Nurse and Campaigner

I have always loved animals and have been surrounded by them. Every weekend when I was younger, I would ask my parents if we could visit the animals at the park or sanctuary nearby and I was always asking to have even more animals to look after.

As I grew older, I only became more passionate about animals and I wanted to help those that I could to live happy, healthy lives. I began volunteering at a dog rescue shelter, helping to walk and feed the dogs, and clean up the kennels there. Seeing the way I could make a difference to their lives made me want to work with animals even more.

I began to look at how I could get a job helping them and found out I could become a Veterinary Nurse and so I started to train as soon as I could. I began to work at a vets for most of the week and go to college too. I finished my training after two years and became a qualified Veterinary Nurse. I did this for almost seven years, helping vets to get animals back to full health. Even though I mainly helped animals that people keep as pets, like dogs and cats, I also saw loads of amazing animals over this time, such as racoons, wallabies, parrots and even an armadillo. Being a nurse was busy and hard work, but very rewarding as I helped so many animals and even saved lives!

I loved being a nurse but I also wanted to help animals in other ways too and started to volunteer for the wildlife trust, counting bees and butterflies and looking after a nature reserve. I also volunteered on projects for animals that aren’t treated very well and my love for campaigning got me into my current job.

I now work for a small but mighty charity, called Naturewatch Foundation, where I get to do what I love - campaigning to make animals’ lives better! We work to help all sorts of animals and we organise World Animal Day, which happens every year. For this special day we help a different animal charity every year by sending them some money. We have helped donkeys in Cameroon, turtles in Indonesia and dogs in Malawi!

The feeling of making a difference! I really enjoy working on something I care about and having purpose in what I do every day. The work I do makes animals lives better, by helping people to make kinder choices and improving the protection that animals have. Campaigning gives you the chance to play a part in making big changes!

I also love working with people that love animals just as much as me as we can achieve so much more together.

My work is also very fun as I get to use creative thinking to find ways to help animals.

This year, one highlight has been seeing the World Animal Day money we gave away being used to create an animal ambulance to help wildlife across the other side of the world.

1. Keep enjoying learning! No one ever knows everything but there are so many interesting things to learn about animals. If you want to work with them, you will always learn new things every day, which is very fun. Keep reading your magazines and watching animal programmes and you’llprobably know more about animals than a lot of adults. You might do already!
2. Spend lots of time with animals.It’s important to gain experience with animals so that you feel more confident with them and find out how you’d most enjoy working with them. The more experience you get, the better!
3. Remember that being kind is the best and most brave thing you can be. Although they should be, not everyone is kind to animals. Animals are amazing and we need people like you to show everyone how to be kind to them, and just how amazing they are!

Ducks! I love seeing how excited they get when it rains or they get to swim in a pond - with waggly tails, drinking the water as quickly as they possibly can. I love everything about them - the way they waddle along, their noises and quacks and how happy they always seem.

If you ever visit somewhere with animals, such as a farm, a stables or a sanctuary, ask lots of questions to the people that take care of the animals - they will always be able to teach you something new.

Join Young Vets Club and explore National Geographic Kids too -they always share a lot of fascinating information about animals.

You could also look into the Pet Education Partnership project by clicking here as they share lots of great learning resources!

I’d also encourage you to get involved with World Animal Day! This important event for animals takes place every year on October 4 and we have lots of ideas of how you could get involved. Your first campaigning project could be encouraging your teachers to do something for World Animal Day this year!