–    helped by a network of angels
SHE was once terrified of animals, which she could never even bear to touch, until a sick kitten left to die on the seawalls gripped her compassion and became the point-runner for her life’s mission.
Her South African friend, Nicole Fitzsimmons had until then been doing animal rescue in this country where animal life is practically worthless, and when Nicole was agonizing about no-one taking up the cudgels on behalf of the voiceless animals when she returned to her homeland, Syeada volunteered. 
“I didn’t know what I was getting myself into,” Syeada laughed wryly, while speaking to Chronicle on Friday last.
Relating some of the stories – most  sad, some uplifting, she said that people change their attitudes to animals when she interacts with communities during her rescue missions. According to her, education creates awareness and generates compassion.
In this way, she has developed a network of persons in various sections of the city, as well as the outskirts, who call her whenever they see an animal in distress. 
Numbered among them are the young adults who became street children after they had been abandoned by their families. She calls them, and the few volunteers who help her, her ‘network of angels’.  One woman, Gloria Fernandes of McDoom, has become converted and avidly looks out for animals in distress, as do many other converts.
Syeada expressed her appreciation to Ministry vets and veterinary technicians, who are always very supportive and, even when physically unavailable, provide referrals and advice.
She was high in praise of the veterinarians, especially Drs. Waldron, Lawrence, Bridgemohan, and Anipet proprietor Dr Pierre, all of whom respond promptly to her calls, regardless the hour, whenever an animal is suffering and needs urgent care, or to be put down immediately.  The GSPCA maintains office hours so the relationship she shares with the vets is important in instances of emergency. 
She says that no matter what time she calls on them they charge her the same fees to euthanize a large animal as the GSPCA does, which is ranged between $1,000 – $2,000.
Syeada says she receives some support, financial and otherwise from friend Noreen Gaskin, a miner and some other Guyanese who wish to remain unknown, and some friends in North America; but she is always scrambling for resources. Spaying one dog costs $8,000, a cat $5,000, and euthanizing by injection costs $1,000 – $2,000 per animal.  She also feeds many healthy animals around the city.  Her gasoline bill each week is astronomical, and sometimes when her volunteers are not available she has to pay helpers when the animal is too large for her to handle alone.  Syeada is very petite and some animals that she handles are very heavy.
She told some heartwarming stories of rescue.  A Canadian friend of hers named Joyce saw a three and a half-legged dog in the High Court compound during Carifesta and called her.  When she went to look for the animal, she saw approximately 30 dogs in the compound that were a nuisance to judges, High Court staff, and visitors so, with the co-operation of the administrator, she cleaned up the High Court compound of dogs, leaving only two, for which she provides food, water, and medical care.
One dog had been locked up in a small kennel and fed only coconuts and water for three years.  Under the husks was a big swarm of ticks that had bitten him so badly that almost all its hair had fallen off.  When Syeada fed him some food in a Styrofoam box he ravenously ate the food then consumed the box.
Some persons chop animals, burn them with hot water, hit them and break their bones, wantonly abandon pets to starve and die when they become old, infirm and diseased, instead of taking them to a vet/GSPCA to get them spayed, treated, or euthanized. 
Syeada believes that half the problem of stray animals is solved by spaying, which decreases the animal population through the prevention of pregnancy.
However, GSPCA has a policy that only animals with a clinic card are spayed by that organization, which is a great deterrent, because the average Guyanese cannot afford the transportation costs for animals to get to clinics in order to be vaccinated.       Syeada took one dog that was accidentally shot by the Police in Container City to the vet and, after spaying it, took some of the stray dogs from this community, and even the pets of willing persons, to be spayed.  For this year alone, Syeada has had in excess of 40 animals – mostly dogs, spayed.
According to Syeada, animal rescue is financially, physically, mentally and emotionally draining.  Despite possessing the requisite rescue apparatus, there is always the risk of contracting diseases, although she most often takes utmost precautions.  However, because she is sometimes forced to do the lifting alone, she many times suffers from sore muscles, especially in her shoulders.
She places the euthanized animals in body bags and takes them to the solid waste department in Princess Street, where she said the staff is always kind and helpful.  She adjures persons with dead animals not to pollute the waterways with the bodies of dead animals, but to hold the City Council and NDCs accountable and let them pick up the carcasses for disposal.
She cited several instances where persons have helped her to rescues animals, and related one incident where someone threw a puppy in a canal and left it to drown.  Mrs. Deolatchmie Ramotar heard the cries of the puppy and she and her husband Donald Ramotar tried to rescue it, with Ramotar venturing into the canal.  However, the puppy was deeply ensconced in a cave-like aperture between thick vegetation that prevented rescue and she retreated further into unreachable depths every time Ramotar tried to grab her, so Mrs. Ramotar called Syeada, who also was unable to fathom a way to retrieve the puppy from what seemed a likely watery grave.  However, the Ramotars enlisted the aid of Khurshid Sattaur, who sent his two sons on an inflatable raft to finally rescue the puppy.  A Canadian resident wanted to adopt the puppy, named Carliza by Syeada, after the Ramotars’ daughter and a friend, but Syeada had fallen in love with the puppy and decided to keep her as part of her menagerie.
Syeada says that her group of mainly young volunteers who assist in many animal rescue projects also help her to clean the manatee pond at the Botanical Gardens and the National Park, a project initiated by Melinda Jankie.
Persons see Syeada’s passionate love for animals; and her intense compassion for animals in distress as abnormal.  This is a sad indictment of the Guyanese society, which often turns a blind eye to people in trouble, much less animals.  The average person thinks hurting others – by unkind words and deeds, is fine sport, so when they observe someone who cares about the suffering of the voiceless, vulnerable, and helpless beings in the society, they brand them and practically send them to Coventry.
But then there are those, like Syeada’s network of angels, some of whom may live in the streets and root in the garbage bins for sustenance, but whose hearts are pure gold, and even more precious than the jewelry festooning the bodies of overfed persons who would kick a starving dog, or chase away a starving person, and Syeada is the gem among them all. 
The few pictures on these pages, among the hundreds in Syeada’s albums, capture the ethos of Syeada’s mission of animal rescue.ering Carliza