Pipi currently dines effectively. The plump, black-and-white street cat lives close to a evening market place in a neighborhood of Taiwan’s capital exactly where volunteers have fed and taken care of strays for years. But Pipi and his fellow street cats got an upgrade of their dining scenario lately with the “Midnight Cafeteria” project.
Launched in September, the “cafeteria” is in fact 45 modest wooden homes painted by Taiwanese artists and scattered across Taipei. The notion is to give the cats a location to rest even though producing feeding them significantly less messy.
It started in math teacher Hung Pei-ling’s neighborhood, exactly where about 20 neighbors are assisting stray cats in addition to their complete-time jobs.
“We want to push forward this philosophy that you don’t have to be part of a very top-level association or something that takes up all of your time,” she mentioned. “You can just be one person doing something a little bit at a time, a little bit, and taken all together, you can achieve a lot.”
Hung started volunteering soon after a superior pal rescued and raised a stray cat. For 5 years, she has worked with other cat lovers in the neighborhood who purchase the cats meals, assistance clean the homes and coordinate with residents who may perhaps have complaints.
Hung also assists capture injured cats and cats that want spaying, requires them to get veterinary consideration and then returns them to their haunts.
The wooden homes in Hung’s neighborhood had been hand-painted by a regional artist Stefano Misesti and function smiling felines as effectively as street meals that is loved in Taiwan such as stinky tofu. In addition to meals bowls, one particular homes fundamental medicine for the cats. Neighbours have brought modest cushions as effectively as decorated cardboard boxes to add to the homes.
Started by Chen Chen-yi, a researcher at the Taiwan Animal Equality Association, the cat homes assistance guarantee stray cats get fed effectively and regional residents do not have to deal with a mess. They also raise awareness about the spaying system and the situation of stray cats.
“In Taiwan there are a lot of people who feed strays, but often they leave a mess, and then the public becomes annoyed by it and they become annoyed with strays as well,” he mentioned.
The cat homes had been a multiteam work. Chen applied for a grant from the Taipei city government to fund the project, and then connected with a regional ward leader as effectively as volunteers to carry it out.
On a current Sunday, Pipi and two of his buddies had been enjoying consideration from Hung and a different volunteer who came to feed them. After consuming at the cafeteria, they settled in for a lazy morning nap.