More about the Bridging Rainbows Foundation
Our
Chairperson, Mrs. Hansa Roy is a
retired geoscientist, who has dedicated two decades of her life to public
health service by having looked after the lifetime well being of more than four
thousand stray dogs in the city of Baroda, Gujarat, India. She has given
her time, emotions, efforts and own money to the cause. Single-handedly, in the
absence of public participation, she had managed to attain 100% sterilisation
by combing areas, befriending stray dogs through active feeding and love, and
has never had a rabies case in any of her dogs under her care.
She continues
to do all the groundwork herself at age sixty three. Presently, she travels
around about fifty kilometres every day tending to an average of three hundred
stray dogs at different locations across Baroda, who are under her lifetime
care. Each of her children, that is what she prefers to call them, has a name they
identify themselves with and a compelling heroic story of their own. They await
her, to be fed one nutritious meal in a clean bowl, have their medical needs
looked after and get the love and dignity they so deserve. She is a daily
constant in their otherwise unpredictable life.
She has filed
more than a hundred police cases and has provided guidance to others, too. She
attends Court hearings related to the animal cruelty cases she has filed.
With the poor
facility for Animal Birth Control in Baroda at present and public
non-cooperation, she struggles to get the stray dogs sterilized and continues
to fight the red tape. She envisions a rabies-free Baroda where fellow human
beings learn to live in harmony and symbiotic relationship with stray dogs.
Our
co-founder, Dr. Kuhu Roy is a
practicing nutritionist with a passion in the area of Metabolic Dysfunction
associated Steatotic Liver Disease and other lifestyle disorders.
When streets
get too cold and cruel for survival, she adopts those with special needs;
blind, paralyzed, amputees. She believes this marginalized segment of stray
dogs is worthy of love and a home.
Born out of
her grief of having seen countless painful deaths in the past two decades of
her service to stray dogs and the death due to negligence of her dog boss named
Butter as the final nail in the coffin, she took up on the taboo and made her
mission to normalize the conversation around the loss of companion animals in
India. A first in India, she runs and moderates support groups for those
grieving the loss of their companion animals since 2021. She proudly states
that her children on three and four legs put her on the trajectory to become
India’s first pet loss grief specialist.
Along with
Mrs. Roy, she has co-authored Can a stray dog become man’s best friend? 5 steps to harmonious
living with stray dogs decoding the
Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme to create awareness regarding spay and
neuter. She believes that ABC is the only means to strive for man-stray dog
harmony and has been requesting the Government to digitalise the scientific
programme for accountability and transparency, regardless of the Animal Birth
Control Rules, 2023.
Over two
decades, they have adopted rescued stray dogs, senior dogs and dogs with
special needs; Butter, Sundae, Chamgi, Matalu, Georgina, Jalebi, Tweeky,
Orange, Ronaldo, Natasha, Alisha, Bhaalu, Guchguch, Tri Babu, Kaniya, Disco,
Christopher, Chhutki, Ghoplu, Baldev, Jammy, Jazz, Zenobia, Mohini, Junior,
Shyam, Ascites Rani, Stephanie, Chotu, Delma, Dixa Babu, Rapunzel, Amma, Bada
Kaan, Mallika, Chinki, White Collar, Mamu, Fruit Laali, Sheru, Distemper,
Venus, Dharmendra and Nimmi.