HAPPA ready to celebrate their 50th anniversary

Burnley Express

Horse charity HAPPA is poised to commemorate their 50th anniversary with a series of special events and initiatives, highlighting their enduring commitment to equine welfare and advocacy.

Transcript

00:00 I'm super excited because I've been here for 17 years and I've watched the charity develop.

00:05 Lots of people will remember HAPA being at Fence, which was 50 years ago this year. We moved to

00:13 Chausse Farm in 1984 and this year we're just going to shout out even louder about the success

00:19 we've had, the people that we've helped locally and across Lancashire and beyond and celebrating

00:26 in lots of different ways including a three-course entertainment and evening ball, special events in

00:34 the cafe and lots and lots more. I oversee all the equine based events here at HAPA.

00:40 We have a wide variety, we stem from simple grooming sessions, owner-pawner days, birthday

00:47 parties right up to providing horse care to beginners and doing clinics, riding clinics

00:52 and dressage competitions. I help run all of the events and with the planning and things so

00:58 I focus on sort of the kids events like owner-pawny days and birthday parties and things

01:03 and I run those. I get to spend a lot of time with the ponies as well and just teaching people

01:07 about how to look after them properly. To celebrate our 50 years in Burnley we're very excited to be

01:14 developing the museum which is going to be all about the evolution of equine welfare

01:19 and so we've got a lot of history at HAPA because we were originally founded in 1937

01:25 obviously to improve the welfare of horses traveling to the continent for slaughter so

01:29 that's you know what we're about and along the way we've got so much history and we're going to

01:34 bring it to life for visitors to come and learn all about that. So this is Marco and he's been

01:39 with us for a couple of years and he's currently on the education scheme so he takes part in the

01:46 education activities and he's a good boy. So he will be coming up for rehoming this year we're

01:53 looking to replace him with another pony as we only ever keep them for a couple of years on the

01:58 education scheme. Bunny came to us along with Pepper who is down at the bottom but their story

02:04 is they were part of a larger rescue which were involved with other organizations so it was a

02:10 collaborative rescue for these ponies and we took them off sort of an exposed rural area

02:16 in the Welsh mountains where if they hadn't have been removed their welfare would have been

02:21 compromised. Rose, everybody loves Rose, she's got a bit of a fan club now she always sticks her head

02:27 over as soon as you come into the barn and wants to say hello to everybody so she's very popular.

02:31 I love my job especially little guys like this one, Percy, he's one of our education horses,

02:38 star of the show and he comes out off-site and visits schools, he also visits agricultural

02:44 shows and he goes out educating the public all about happy and horse care. We had a nice surprise

02:49 last spring where we had two little foals, obviously Bunny as you can see is quite friendly

02:54 and she was quite receptive of us because they'd never been handled in the past so you know they

02:59 were quite feral on arrival and very defensive because they were in foal and overly protective

03:04 of their young but Pepper on the other hand has taken them longer to come round and we've worked

03:10 really hard with her, we've had a behaviourist on site helping us and the team here but it's

03:16 quite rewarding when they do come round and obviously the foals now have been weaned so

03:20 they will be available to foster but we never relinquish ownership so she'll stay in our care

03:27 for the rest of her life so you know our future is safe now. You can't do this job if you don't

03:31 love it really, you've got to work with horses because you love the horses and it's just so

03:35 rewarding working here with them you know you see them coming in in a bit of a state and then you're

03:41 doing all the rehabilitation getting them back healthy and happy and then seeing them go to the

03:45 homes is just the best thing. Their reaction is usually, especially if he's on a school playground

03:50 they don't usually come out of their classes to playground to then see a Shetland pony there

03:55 so yeah they're usually shocked and usually quite delighted to see him and as you can see he loves

04:00 attention. We've been volunteering for quite a few years and we've done a lot of painting on site,

04:05 painting the toilets outside, we've painted the indoor arena, we've painted the stables,

04:11 we've painted just about everything that's in the place and there's also gardening duties and I put

04:17 up the hanging baskets and anything that needs decorating that's I do that. The horses are loved

04:24 to bits and the whole place does a wonderful job on looking after the horses and rehabilitating

04:31 them into hopefully another home when they've been abused. We're very keen to hear from anybody

04:37 that's got any involvement with HAPA over the years and we've had a lot of stalwart pioneers

04:44 and our founder Mona Husky originally founded us in 1937 so we've got a big story to tell and

04:51 we've come a long long way and it's a fantastic journey and that we're all very passionate about.

04:57 On average we are looking at taking in between 20 and 23 horses every single year so times that by

05:05 50 and beyond because obviously we've been here a lot longer as well. Not forgetting the number

05:10 of people who we support over the telephone, who call for advice, looking for support, asking

05:16 questions and the people who come to site and learn you know who are they going to be the next

05:21 generation of equine owners and hope that they get right and we don't have to be here anymore.

05:25 Every single person who gets involved in HAPA no matter how they do means that we continue to be

05:30 here because if it wasn't for public support we wouldn't be able to exist.

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