Grey Africa and the NGO Community Led Animal Welfare (CLAW) launched a children’s book, Zee Rescues a Friend, to the children of Durban Deep on Saturday 17 September.

The book tells the story of a boy, Zee, who saves a dog tied up on a short chain. The story is inspired by the children in the community who walk for many kilometres to seek veterinary care for their pets and who also play a huge role in saving stray animals. The book will serve as an educational tool to teach even more children about pet care and compassion.

CLAW’s clinic provides free veterinary healthcare services to the impoverished community where vet care is non-existent. They give back to the people of Durban Deep and host workshops to educate the community. CLAW hopes to have the book in every school in the township so it can be read by every child.

The children’s book has been a two and half year labour of love for the team at Grey: writer Toni Cheiman and designer Greer van Eyssen. The pair came up with the idea of creating a children’s book for CLAW in 2014 as a pro-bono project. “CLAW have a very trusted relationship with the Durban Deep community and for years they’ve been teaching kids about animal welfare and how to care for their pets, so the idea for a children’s book was so obvious it was genius,” explains Cheiman. Greer van Eyssen, designer at Grey, offered to illustrate the entire book, and her unique style brought all the special characters to life.

“We’re extremely happy with the result, Zee Rescues a Friend could proudly stand on the shelf of any major book retailer. But what was more rewarding was seeing how much the Durban Deep children enjoyed it. Because it was inspired and written for them,” says Van Eyssen.

The prcrowd-fundedowd funded on Thundafund, which rewards “backers” for donating to the project. In the end the Grey team raised the funds for CLAW and the printing of the book was kindly sponsored by RMB, championed by Anneke Van Zyl.

CLAW received over 900 books, with every child who attended the book launch receiving a copy. There are plans to make the book available as an e-book on CLAW’s website to continue raising funds and educating children everywhere. CLAW’s project manager, Sheena Dale, presented the book to her International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) colleagues at the CITES/COP Convention, and IFAW Headquarters (based in Cape Cod, USA) has requested an e-book version to distrbute worldwide. In addition, a Spanish version of the book will be made for distribution in Mexico.

The story is about a boy who saves a dog, but perhaps why the tale is so globally relevant and poignant, is because it’s actually the dog that saves the boy.

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