Published by Ontario Veterinary College (519) 824-4120, Ext. 54401

May 18, 2006

Vets Without Borders teams up with Aeroplan

A fledgling Canadian veterinary humanitarian organization may soon take full flight thanks to a recently announced partnership with Aeroplan.

Veterinarians Without Borders (VWB) / Vétérinaires sans Frontières-Canada (VSF), along with several other high-profile charitable groups, has been invited by Aeroplan to join in a new initiative that will encourage members of the travel rewards program to donate their Aeroplan miles to charity. Aeroplan launched its new community support program called Beyond Miles in Toronto on May 17, unveiling several new partners including Air Canada Kids Horizons, Canadian Executive Service Organization, Engineers Without Borders, Médicine sans Frontières, Stephen Lewis Foundation, and Schools without Borders in addition to Veterinarians Without Borders. To help get the program started, Aeroplan has made an initial gift of 1 million Aeroplan miles to VWB-Canada and to each of the other charities.

Dr. David Waltner-Toews, the founding president of VWB-Canada, said the partnership is a major step forward for the organization that only had its official launch at the 2005 CVMA convention in Victoria. The group is building upon the development work already being done abroad by Canadian veterinarians in animal health, ecosystem health, public health and wildlife management.

“We have been doing this international work on a shoestring,” said Waltner-Toews,
an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College. “The main limitation is always travel. If we can get there, we can find people to put us up and the living is relatively cheap. But a major problem has been the cost of getting us from here to there. For this reason, Aeroplan’s corporate support through the Beyond Miles program potentially takes care of a huge commitment of our scarce resources that would otherwise be spent on flights. What we need now is for the veterinary community and other interested members of the public to make use of the donation plan ”

By donating air miles, people will be supporting the efforts of Canadian veterinarians working in disadvantaged communities from Sri Lanka to Tanzania to Canada’s Northwest Territories. VWB-Canada’s guiding mission is to work with communities to foster the health of animals, people and the environments that sustain us all.

As an example, last fall VWB-Canada was asked by the Sri Lankan government to assist with developing the country’s veterinary health and aquaculture capacities. Sri Lanka is slowly rebuilding its food production and health systems destroyed by the 2004 tsunami.
With the assistance of Aeroplan, Schering-Plough Animal Health and Marine Harvest Japan, Drs. Craig Stephen and Mark Sheppard toured the country to learn about Sri Lankan veterinary and agricultural systems and the challenges they face in terms of animal diseases, zoonotic disease control, food safety and aquaculture.

They subsequently developed a letter of intent to CIHR/Health Canada that has been accepted and has provided interim funding to draft a full collaborative proposal. VWB Canada has also funded an applied project to improve poultry production in a ‘test’ village in Tanzania for enhance food production and economic improvement. The latter project is being carried out with the cooperation and local supervision of the Tanzanian Veterinary Association.

According to Dr Wayne McDonell, VWB Board member, the partnership with Aeroplan will help VWB-Canada solidify the agency’s international presence and bring Canadian veterinary expertise to where it is needed most. “The Beyond Miles program allows anyone — veterinarians, their staff members or anyone who appreciates the connection between animals, people and the environment — to contribute in a tangible way without donating money,” McDonell said.

For more information, contact VWB-Canada at (519) 546-2707 or email info@vwb-vsf.ca, or go to www.vwb-vsf.ca.
To donate your miles, www.aeroplan.com/use_your_miles/donate_miles.do