The Whole World in One Glance
27 captured moments of calling eyes, more than 400 dogs and a perspective of the photographer Yulia Mun, who dared to do a good deed.
Julia Mun's charity photo exhibition was opened in the lobby of the Ilkhom Theater in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The exhibit was created in support of the first official animal shelter in Uzbekistan “Hayot”, which means “Life”.
Do good deeds
The organizers built a special photo shooting area in front of the entrance. Balloons with the hashtags #Твори_добро (do good deeds) and #Hayot_jizn, themed signs "Adopt a friend from the shelter," a booth with the logo and a donation box in front of it, where you could donate absolutely any amount of money to help our dogs.
Teenagers and adults took commemorative pictures and then approached the author of the exhibition and the director of the shelter, asking what they could do to help and how they could shelter the dogs.
Julia Mun, an aspiring designer, was inspired to create this exhibit by another author, who organized the exhibition “Homeless”, dedicated to homeless people.
"This is my first exhibition, which was inspired by the animals themselves. All photos were taken at the animal shelter Hayot this year in January. There are also a few pictures of the stray dogs living in my neighborhood. I try to take care of them, feed them... This exhibition drew on a great love for animals, which I have since I was a kid, and this love led to the creation of this exhibition," said Julia Mun, the author of the exhibition.
Hayot means Life
"I have been a volunteer for six years. I've rescued dogs myself, kept them in paid temporary animal shelters. It was very expensive. The idea to create an animal shelter wasn’t mine, back in 2015 volunteers were fighting to get a piece of the land for the animal shelter, but they failed, no one had time to run back and forth and deal with all the bureaucracy. Then I took over this task. Finally, the khokimiyat (the local authorities) gave their approval to allocate land and build the shelter.
At the moment, a few temporary kennels have already been built on the allocated territory. Today at this exhibition we have also presented the dream project of our shelter. We are actively looking for sponsors. We hope that Murad Buildings, Golden House or any other large construction company will decide to work on this project and build the shelter because it is almost impossible for us to it do on our own. We were able to build a few temporary kennels, but as of now, there is no possibility to build more.
We also signed a contract with the local vet clinic: each dog is vaccinated and has a vet passport. Besides, we agreed with the poultry farm to purchase in bulks – not kilograms, but tons of poultry. We spend 100 kilos of chaff a day. In addition to the high costs of food and vaccinations, a lot of money is spent on pet cabs, since the vet clinics are in the city. Nevertheless, since the opening of Click and Payme (money transfer applications), we have felt that the financial support of the people is growing. A part of the donations we transfer to the vet clinics for their services.
In the future, we plan to actively promote our shelter through such exhibitions and other projects. We plan to exhibit the dogs themselves, because, unfortunately, there is such a trend that people prefer to adopt animals from the shelter, rather than adopting the stray animals," said Iroda Matkarimova, the owner of the shelter.
The shelter is located in Mayskiy village, outside of Kibray (a small city outside Tashkent). Every Saturday a big team of volunteers visits the shelter and helps in any way they can: someone helps financially, others donate food, it depends on how big their souls are and to what extent they are ready to unselfishly help, and, of course, it depends on the financial abilities and capabilities in general of each person.
You can come here and become the owner of the most faithful friend of a human being - a dog. After all, they are so in need of friendship, care and service to a human. Looking at the pictures, you can see the sadness in the eyes of animals abandoned to their fate, but at the same time, you can see the loyalty and how they are waiting for a new owner.
"Today is a rather unconventional exhibition, which, in my opinion, is very rarely held in our city. This shelter is the first official animal shelter in Uzbekistan. I think that this is a great achievement, because due to some domestic problems recently we pay little attention to stray animals, but they need our help because they cannot help themselves. I think there should be more such shelters in Uzbekistan, because nowadays there are so many sick animals abandoned on the streets, as it was never before, and they need human’s help. I think this exhibition is a great benefit, because it brings people and animals closer together, awakening humanity in people," said Aziza Nizamova, a singer.
How can one help?
If you can't visit the shelter and help out volunteers or adopt an animal, you can still support the shelter.
If you are not from Uzbekistan, you can still donate using the following payment systems:
- 1. Click
Go to: click.uz/ru/wallet
Insert the following number: +998 90 3574477
- 2. Paysend.com
Go to: paysend.com
Insert the following card number: 8600 0904 5833 1426
- 3. Yandex wallet
Our Yandex wallet number is 4100 1164 3578 4016
Original Text in Russian prepared by Alina Sorochkina, Tashkent, 22.02.2019