How the Sidewalk Steri Clinic is changing pet care in South African townships
The Sidewalk Steri Clinic has been seeing to dogs since 2022
Image: Armand Hough
In South Africa’s townships and informal settlements, millions of cats and dogs live side by side with people, often in poverty and largely without access to basic veterinary care. It’s here, in the heart of De Doorns, just outside Worcester, that a small but powerful intervention is changing lives.
In 2022, Sidewalk Specials opened the Sidewalk Steri Clinic, a community-based project aimed at providing accessible vet care, sterilisation, parasite control, vaccinations and pet education to township residents.
For Rachael Sylvester van Wyk, the organisation’s founder, the idea was born from an urgent need.
“In South Africa, it's estimated over 10 million people live in townships and informal settlements. In turn, millions of domestic dogs and cats are living alongside them, facing a daily struggle to survive and with limited or no access to basic veterinary care,” van Wyk said.
The 40-year-old originally from Sheffield in the UK now lives in Vredehoek, Cape Town.
“Without access to veterinary care, a domesticated dog or cat will live a short, painful, parasite infested life whilst breeding the next generation of puppies and kittens to repeat the cycle.”
With over 7 857 animals sterilised to date, the Sidewalk Steri Clinic now runs every two weeks, attending to both routine and emergency cases. The clinic has also become a model for others, offering free downloadable protocols to help charities set up their own township-based sterilisation programmes.
Despite its success, the project has not been without critics.
Rachael Sylvester van Wyk, the organisation’s founder, the idea was born from an urgent need.
Image: Armand Hough
“People’s support wavers when it comes to us choosing to provide veterinary care in townships over removing township animals and rehoming them,” van Wyk said. “We see it in our social media comments all the time: ‘Why have pets if you can’t afford a vet?’”
“The ‘pets don’t belong in townships’ argument is valid in as much as neither do children, men or women. But this is our current reality in South Africa and it isn’t changing anytime soon, not for the humans or the animals,” she said.
Instead of removing animals from loving homes and placing them into an overwhelmed shelter system, Sidewalk Specials focuses on in-community care. That means bringing vets into townships, sterilising pets, and providing education to owners.
“There are hundreds of thousands of animals in our townships. There aren’t hundreds of thousands of adoptive homes waiting to take them in,” Van Wyk said.
“What we insist on is that all animals on a property are sterilised. If you can't afford your dog's vet care please don't breed more. That fences are mended. That dogs live off chains,” she said.
“Confiscation is far easier than ongoing education, but it only takes one to change the future for South Africa's township pets,” she said.
One dog’s journey perfectly captures the clinic’s mission. Laila, once an unwanted dog, was sterilised, vaccinated, and then rehomed within the same township community.
“We now have requests to adopt unwanted dogs from township residents who understand that vet care, food and love makes for a beautiful pet. Making vet care available, giving people the opportunity to be responsible pet owners, makes all the difference,” she explained.
Currently, the Sidewalk Steri Clinic operates bi-weekly, sterilising 40 animals and handling 20 emergency cases. But the dream is much bigger.
Dogs now receive the basic medical assistance.
Image: Armand Hough
“Ideally, we’d like to run the clinic twice a week and have it operate as a hospital in between,” Van Wyk said. “Right now, we have to outsource broken legs or animals needing ongoing hospitalisation to private vets, which eats into our budget for sterilisations.”
“We desperately need an X-ray machine and a CBC machine to analyse blood samples. If anyone reading this would like to help, they can head to www.sidewalkspecials.org/donate,” she said.
The joy, van Wyk said, comes in the small victories: families bonding with their dogs, children growing up with pets who survive beyond puppyhood, and entire communities shifting their perception of pet ownership.
“Seeing township families actually enjoy their pets, seeing children bond with their dogs without the fear of losing them early to preventable diseases. Seeing old dogs that our clinic sterilised as puppies, living happy long lives in the township,” she said.
“There’s now less demand for new puppies because people's dogs are living their full life span. People are even handing in breeding dogs to be sterilised. The township community understands now that a healthy pet is a sterilised pet,” she said.
The success of the clinic would not be possible without the ongoing generosity of key supporters.
“If we could thank Mooigezicht Estates for donating our Steri Hall free of charge for over three years now; NexGard South Africa for sponsoring free tick and flea medication for over five years. And Pet Heaven for sponsoring our dog and cat food for over three years,” Van Wyk said.
Weekend Argus