• History of Our Organization

    Beginning around 1997, an informal group of individuals started to work together in an effort to improve the lives of animals on Karpathos.

     

    By the year 2000, these same people realized that feeding strays or relocating a few to forever homes elsewhere did not solve the problem on the island — in many ways, it ended up exacerbating it. The first to spring into action to find a solution was Rita Weber (sadly she returned to Germany in 2003) who had contacts with a German animal welfare organization and managed to get a group of vets (including Dr. Martina Greve and Carsten Ritter) to do a spay and neuter campaign in May 2000.


    The first legally established animal welfare group on the island was registered in 2002 and called 'Animal Friends Karpathos' and in Greek “Φίλοι των Ζώων-Κάρπαθος”. This organization was the product of the determination of: Alf B. Meier, Nikos Alexiou, Angelika Frangos, Rita Weber, Fred Baade, and vet Dr. Martina Greve. The initial elected officials were Vena Kamaratos, Margarita Alexiou and Patricia Moser. Many of our current board members and volunteers played an active role in the foundation of this group.
     
    They were able to set up the “Animal Welfare Clinic” in the Konaki area of Pigadia (the island's capital). Wholly funded by donations, it treated all kinds of injured animals, and strove to alleviate the animal population problem by neutering and spaying stray animals.

     

    This organization worked hard to try to control the stray animal population and to improve the health of all animals on Karpathos — not just cats and dogs. It was only been able to succeed with the help of a network of dedicated people, both locally and internationally. Sadly, the clinic ended up closing its doors in 2017, when Alf and his wife moved to the USA.

     

    Alf recalls the year when a big change happened at the clinic where he was Veterinary Services Supervisor:

     

    “In 2005 it was also decided to accept interns that could assist me with the day to day operations of the clinic (against my recommendations!). The story was pretty funny. One day a gentleman showed up at the clinic with a cat that could not swallow and in about 5 minutes I had the right diagnosis and was getting the steroids ready for the animal. The man identified himself as one of the Veterinary Profs. of the Thessaloniki university and somehow used to come to Othos for his vacations. He asked me if I would also train students in internships. I said no, I had enough problems. The Prof evidently did not accept no for an answer and went to the Board. The board said yes.... After that he came back a few years with his cat, always saying something along the lines of: "I could have gone to a vet in Thessaloniki but as I know that you are so much better I waited until I got here."

     

  • Meanwhile, all the volunteers continued operating from the Facebook platform which was labeled as 'Animal Welfare Karpathos'. In addition, the volunteers continued to rescue and send animals for adoptions and never stopped lending a hand to any animal in need.
     
    A year of planning, networking and filing the necessary legal groundwork led to the creation to our not-for-profit, Animal Welfare Karpathos (AWK) which was legally registered in August, 2020. Our name was inspired by the Facebook page name which was being maintained by one of our board members, Angelika Frangos.

     

    Driven by the dedicated efforts of Dr. Anna Katogiritis, DVM (who was an active volunteer of Animal Friends Karpathos and its clinic since 2005) with the passionate support of the members of the Board listed on the Who we Are page and utilizing the vast network of the support garnered by the Facebook group - we were able to lay the foundation of our non-for-profit organization which requires us to follow the highest of standards.

     

    Our primary goal is to marry an active team of volunteers on the ground that can partner with people around the globe. This will enable us to create a sustainable organization that will continue to support the improvement of animal welfare on the island.

     

    Animal Welfare Karpathos

    moves forward into a new and brighter future for animals on Karpathos

  •   

  • “The question is not, can they reason?, nor can they talk? but, can they suffer?”

    - Jeremy Bentham

  • Become a AWK Volunteer!

    It will take all of us together to create the change we want to see on the island.
    We are always in need for more volunteers!

    Be a AWK Foster home!

    We are always looking for more foster homes to help our animals as they get ready to go to their forever homes!

    Join our volunteers and chat with us in our Discord group

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Privacy Policy
Privacy Policy
Thank you for visiting Animal Welfare Karpathos (AWK). We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal information. The following Privacy Policy applies to information collected at www.animalwelfarekarpathos.comr, AWK-owned or operated online services and mobile apps (jointly “Sites”). By accessing and continuing to use the Sites you acknowledge that you have read and that you agree to the practices described herein.

How we protect your privacy
1. INFORMATION COLLECTED
Personally-Identifiable Information (“Personal Information”)
AWK and AWK’s service providers only collect Personal Information when you voluntarily submit such information, for example by signing up for the AWK newsletter or to donate. Depending on the service you choose, the Personal Information collected may include your name, email address, address, phone number, payment details, organizational affiliation and similar information.
AWK uses the following tools to collect Personal Information, which are stored by AWK internally:
Strikingly, G-Suite products, Papaki.gr, PayPal and/or Stripe are used to store Personal Information voluntarily provided when visitors donate or sign-up for email on our Sites, in addition to the pathway through which the visitor accessed the sign-up or donation form.
AWK uses Google Analytics to provide more rigorous statistical analyses of data maintained internally by AWK in G-Suite.

Non-Personal Information
For each visitor to this website, our web servers may automatically recognize and collect information that does not identify you personally (“Non-Personal Information”), such as in-bound domain names, your computer’s IP address, the type of browser in use and pages viewed. This data tells us which pages our users visit and what information they volunteer, such as survey information and/or site registrations.
We use Google Analytics, which installs cookies on users’ browsers, to understand the performance of our Sites and content contained within including, but not limited to: number of visits and average time spent either to a single page or the entire site, number of pages viewed per session, or the sequence of pages visited. We may also customize site structure or navigation as well as certain web content based on these data as well as your browser type, bandwidth or other settings to optimize your site experience. Google Analytics also collects information about the devices that are used to access our site, including computer type (Windows or Macintosh), screen resolution, operating system and version, device manufacturer and model, language, and Internet browser type and version. Google uses these data to reports web trends.

We may also use cookies to record past activity on our Web Site in an effort to provide better and faster service upon your return visits to this Web Site, like suppressing a promotional lightbox after it has been closed by the user. We may also customize certain web content based on your browser type, screen dimensions, bandwidth or other settings to optimize your site experience.
We use third-party services that allow us to serve you advertisements while on participating Sites, based on information relating to your time on our site or similar types of sites, which is tracked through a unique cookie on your browser or tracking pixels.
We use Google Adwords to display text ads at the top of Google keyword searches. Anonymized information on specific keywords typed is provided.
We use YouTube to host video content on animalactionkarpathos.org. Analytics for this platform include aggregated and anonymized data on length and location of views, basic demographic details, and engagement rates.

2. USE OF INFORMATION
Personal Information
Any Personal Information collected through our Sites is used for the purpose for which it was provided, for example:
•	to periodically alert you to AAK news and events,
•	to respond to inquiries,
•	to contact you about contests you entered through our Sites and to invite you to participate in new contests,
•	to customize your web experience or content you receive via email,
•	to encourage social sharing functionality.

For internal data analysis, for example to identify trends, determine effectiveness of past and current campaigns, enhance current online tools, and plan future digital strategies.
We do not share your Personal Information with any third parties without your consent, except under the following circumstances:
•	to AWK service providers for the purposes set forth above;
•	in response to a subpoena or when we are required to do so by law, for example, in response to a court order or other legal obligation;
•	in response to a law enforcement agency’s request;
•	to protect the security or confidentiality of our records;
•	in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with our rights;

or in the event AWK goes through a reorganization (e.g., a merger into another organization), in which case you will be notified via a prominent notice on the website of any such transfer of your Personal Information.

Non-Personal Information
We may use Non-Personal Information for any purpose, unless restricted by applicable law. In some instances, we may combine Non-Personal Information with Personal Information. If we do, we will treat the combined information as Personal Information as long as it is combined.

3. SECURITY
Our Sites incorporate reasonable and appropriate safeguards using industry standard technology to heighten the security, accuracy and privacy of any Personal Information collected by AWK.
All online donation transactions are encrypted using the Secure Socket Layers (SSL) protocol. Such transactions are processed through PayPal or Stripe, a PCI DSS compliant gateway provider, and are not stored or processed on AWK's servers. PCI DSS is the payment card industry security requirement for entities that store, process or transmit cardholder data. PCI DSS Compliance gives consumers the confidence they need to know that organizations accepting donations are doing so in a verified, secure, and consistent fashion. Stripe received Level 1 PCI compliance - the highest level validation. These comprehensive standards are intended to help AWK proactively protect your account data — a responsibility we take very seriously. For more information visit Stripe.com.

4. LINKED WEBSITES
Our Sites contains links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites.

5. UPDATE PERSONAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS PREFERENCES
You can control the type of information collected through our Sites, for example by not accepting cookies from AWK, by erasing all AWK cookies from your browser, or by not providing Personal Information when prompted. To opt out of cookies installed by Google Analytics, please see https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Your choice will impact your communications preferences, for example we will not be able to respond to inquiries when you do not share your email address with us.

If you wish to update your Personal Information with us or change your communications preferences or if you no longer wish to receive communications from us, please tell us so by email or written letter. Please include your exact name and contact details so that we can correctly remove you from our mailing list. We can be reached via email at animalactionkarpathos@gmail.com.

6. CHILDREN’S PRIVACY
We recognize the importance of protecting the privacy of children on the web and will never collect or maintain information at our website from those we actually know are under 13 years old. No part of our website is directed at children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under age 13. If we discover that a person under the age of 13 has provided us with any Personal Information, we will delete that information from our systems. We do not reply to information requests from children under the age of 13, if so identified. A parent or guardian must initiate any requests for information from children under the age of 13 on their behalf. We encourage parents to supervise children when they browse the internet.

7. CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS
It is our policy not to disclose any Personal Information we collect to third parties for direct marketing purposes under any circumstances. However, California Civil Code Section 1798.83 requires that all California residents be afforded the option to exercise their choice of whether Personal Information may be shared with third parties for direct marketing purposes or not, as well as to receive information specified in the statute if Personal Information is disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes. Accordingly, if you are a California resident and you wish to inform us whether you permit or refuse the sharing of your personal information with third parties for direct marketing purposes, or if you wish to request certain information if your personal information were to be disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes, please contact us as described in the section “Update Personal Information and Communications Preferences”.

8. CROSS BORDER TRANSFERS
Your Personal Information may be stored and processed in any country where we have facilities or service providers, and by using our Sites or by providing consent to us (where required by law), you agree to the transfer of information to countries outside of your country of residence, including to the United States, which may provide for different data protection rules than in your country.

9. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
We reserve the right to modify or supplement this policy at any time. If a material change to this policy is made, we will post a notice on the home page, and any changes to the policy will be posted on this page.

QUESTIONS
If you have any questions about our privacy statement or the practices of this site, please contact us via our Facebook page.

Effective Date: This privacy policy was last revised August 9, 2020. A registered non-for-profit in Karpathos, Greece | Tax ID #996802452