These 4 Khmer Cats Need Your £1,880 through GoFundMe to Move from Cambodia to England

[CEOCambodiaNews]

Come on guys, have a heart. These Phnom Penh cats need to leave their woes behind in Cambodia and start a new life in England. Please help make a dream come true. Natalie Hayes from Chadderton, North West England, United Kingdom is trying to make this happen, and you can be a part of this by opening up your hearts and your wallets.

From GoFundMe:

One year ago my husband, my daughter and I were on our way to the zoo just outside of Phnom Penh, when we stopped at a shop by the side of the road to by some Rambutans. It was there that we saw four bedraggled looking kittens, no older than three weeks. Malnourished and dirt-riddled, they looked they wouldn't survive another day. Immediately I picked them up, as I always do, and the shop-keeper told me that her son (an adult) abuses them; throwing them across the floor, hitting them and kicking them for no apparent reason at all. Naturally, I was enraged, these kittens were barely able to walk and my tolerance for animal abusers is extremely lacking. It was clear that nobody was taking care of these little creatures and that their death was imminent, if not by one of the many cars speeding past the busy road in front of the shop, then by the hands of a very disturbed grown man. 

"Take them!" she urged me, "Take them!". My husband rolled his eyes, he knew what was coming, my daughter's eyes lit up as I put them in the car one by one. 

There were four kittens in the litter; three girls and one boy who were named Virginia Woolf, Jeanette Winterson, Margret Atwood and Oscar Wilde (you can tell I love literature). They became a part of our home and each morning Maly would be overjoyed to wake up and check on them, helping with their feeding routine. Sadly just a month later Margret Atwood was run over right in front of our house, a horrific incident that Maly witnessed and something which she still gets upset about today.

Not long after rescuing this litter, I saw a post on Facebook about two kittens that were stuck in the wall of a cafe in Phnom Penh. The kittens had been there for three days already, whining for help with no access to food or water. It was clear from their cries that they were extremely young and the mother cat was nowhere to be found. The woman who discovered their cries urged the waiters in the cafe to assist in getting them out, however they were extremely reluctant to do so. In the end with great perseverance, the woman was able to convince them to do the right thing and the cats were rescued. 

Shortly after the rescue the woman advertised on Facebook in order to get them re-homed. The woman had already 30+ cats in her possession and was unable to keep them. Cats in Cambodia are viewed as vermin, therefore it is extremely hard to re-home them. I knew that it would be hard to find someone to take them in, so I did. 

Both kittens were boys, and we named them Gizmo and James (Joyce). Unfortunately just a few days after their rescue, James Joyce fell unexpectedly ill and past away without warning. The vet told us that it was extremely common with rescued cats, not knowing what hereditary diseases they may have. Again this was heartbreaking for both Maly and I... (CONTINUED...)

[IraHayes]

They care about the cats... but not enough to get the money themselves. They have the money for a relocation back to the UK but not for something as vitally important as a few cats. Also, I think she should have mentioned at leat 10 more times how much Maly adores them and how heartbroken she will be to leave them.

[John Bingham]

Many expats in Cambodia adopt cats with good intentions but end up having to dump them back on the streets because they're unable to afford the relocation fees. This is something we will not do, but we need all the help we can get!

Such idiocy. Have these people got zero sense of self-awareness or what? Picking up diseased vermin and transporting it half-way across the world is just weird. I blame it on taxoplasmosis.

[frank lee bent]

do you get a coffee mug?

[Anchor Moy]

But they are so cute.

[SternAAlbifrons]

As long as they are not Fishing cats, Leopard cats, Golden cats, Marbled cats, Jungle cats, Leopards, Clouded leopards - these kittens can go the way of the Cambodian Tiger as far as I am concerned.

[Anthony's Weiner]

Their gofundme page has raised no money, received no donations and has not produced a single comment in its first 13 hours.

My faith in humankind is slowly being restored.

[Phnom Poon]

Cats in Cambodia are viewed as vermin

Correctly, they destroy local wildlife

[Doc67]

It's very easy to feel sorry for abandoned kittens.

But pet kittens grow up into pet cats and need looking after for 10 to 15 years. Unless you know, as a racing certainty, that you are going to be in this country for that length of time you are just inviting grief if you get a pet while you are here. And who really knows where life is going to take them in the next 15 years?

This is a problem of entirely their own making and their cutesy-cutesy scrounging off the public to fund their folly is pathetic. The complete lack of support seems to bear this out.

[IraHayes]

From their GoFundMyWhim.com page

We know that re-homing the cats in Cambodia is going to be virtually impossible, as the only likely candidates to adopt cats are expats who remain in Cambodia temporarily, resulting in them most likely having to be re-homed again, we would like to do all that we can to ensure we have tried everything to get them back here with us. Many expats in Cambodia adopt cats with good intentions but end up having to dump them back on the streets because they're unable to afford the relocation fees. This is something we will not do, but we need all the help we can get!

So they acknowledge the problem is the “temporary” nature of being an expat and why, therefor, expats shouldn’t adopt (or rescue) pets because the relocation fees to get those pets to the west is expensive. Just a shame they didn’t have this clarity of thought when they rescued them in the first place.

These types of gofundme’s show peoples lack of personal responsibility and their inability to accept the consequences of their actions.
You rescued the cats.
You knew there was a chance you would return home one day.
You deal with it.