A Counter-Reply to the Wild Accusations Thrown to KTAJ/SCRATCH

Disclaimer: This entry is to explain and to counter-reply the accusations thrown to KTAJ/SCRATCH and its members. We are not interested to engage any fight with any NGO or individuals. With this entry published, we assume everyone has moved on and really mean it. Should there be any screenshot of accusation concerning us, we do not hesitate to take a legal action. 

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Days ago, our volunteers came across a post accusing KTAJ/SCRATCH and its members swindling the donation money and questioning our contribution. We would like to clarify and here are the screenshots: 

Since the post was made public, we too would like to take the same stand so that all of us can learn to be more civilized to differentiate personal fight and organizational arguments. 

Here goes our counter-reply and it is indeed lengthy:

KTAJ was first founded in March 2011 that was months before the Petknode’s Hell Hotel tragedy.  KTAJ was officially registered in 2013 and renamed as S.C.R.A.T.C.H  (Stray Cats Rescue and Treatment Community Help). We do not have any shelter and therefore we require the community, the society and the public to take part in rescuing/rehabilitating process of the saved cats.

There are divisions or units in KTAJ/SCRATCH namely

a. E-Mail team    

b. KTAJ Online Adoption House  

c. KTAJ official page   

d. Event and Program   

e. Neutering team

1. Main mission and vision

a. We provide medical subsidy

b. We provide neutering subsidy

c. Occasionally under certain circumstances we provide temporary fostering for independent rescuers

We do not have any shelter and thus we do not take any injured or stray cats. Please bear in mind, we have a wider definition of rescue activity; not limited to sheltering injured cats or take in any stray cats found on the streets. We rescue humans’ souls too by educating them the importance of volunteering works, neutering, the practice of euthanasia and so forth. We encourage the public to take part in the process to cultivate volunteerism.  We provide online adoption house as a platform to rehome the rescued cats.

2. President and Presidency

a.  There will be 1 president at one Financial Year and we had 2 ex-presidents so far.

b.  President is elected by the committee members except the first president who is self-appointed.

c. President does not have any privilege in terms of subsidy application in fact, anyone holds this post is made difficult to apply for subsidy; except the first president where she had the authority to approve her own subsidy.

d. President must be someone all-rounder, thus he or she will get involve all division mentioned before. Having said all-rounder, president must be someone knowledgeable and being diplomatic is optional.

The  President of KTAJ is just like any  other committee members. He or she is required to involve in charity booth and all instructions, policies given must be collectively agreed by the committee members first. In case of any wrong doing, abuse of power and money swindling he can be challenged and can be advised to resign. He or she holds no immunity.

3. Experience

Majority of the committee members have the experience with cats and/or dogs ever since they were born. The President does not run the organization alone and from time to time all members are learning from each other. The comparison of ‘having less experience’ is thus invalid. KTAJ/SCRATCH focuses on the welfare of the cats and dogs, therefore we have no interest at competing with anyone in terms of experience or publicity.

4. Attitude

a. We are vocal and opinionated when comes to animal welfare. You may find some of us portraying strong characters when solving problems either verbally or through email.

b. If any of our committee member has any dispute on PERSONAL capacity, KTAJ will not hold responsible and should not be associated unless he or she, speak on behalf of us with the permission of the committee members. Public must be able to distinguish between personal dispute and disagreement between organizations. We do not pick fight with any independent rescuers or any organizations.

5. Why We Don’t Go Big

a. As a registered organization, we are required to abide the law by having our financial book audited. That was time when the ledger didn’t tally with the receipts and expenses. In 2013, an EGM was held and the second president was elected to head KTAJ/SCRATCH. The first president was not KICKED out from KTAJ, as a matter of fact, she resigned and was made to be the Honorary Member.

b. During the transition time there were too many insufficient information because some of the previous committee members failed to document the transaction. Our organization was in a great mess to a point we have to halt subsidy assistance to sort out many problems.  We cannot go big, organizing big charity event and so forth due to this reason. The problems left for us drained most of our energy and tiring our brains.

6. Subsidy application

a. Public: send an email > we respond > provide bills and pictures > we bring your application into our meeting > decision; approve or disapprove.

b. Members: send an email > we respond> provide bills and pictures> we investigate> evaluate current balance of our account > bring into the meeting > decision; approve or disapprove.

Tell us, can you spot a difference? We will share and flaunt our subsidy from now on. Who we have helped and who we are still helping. We believe the public should know that money wasn’t used among ourselves.

Our core volunteers are all working people and therefore we are less likely to apply for subsidy because it is too tedious for us. We made it simple for public to apply from us but with terms and conditions.

7. Collaboration with other NGO

a. We have a good repo with Malaysian Dogs Deserve Better, Furry Friends Farm, Lost Animal Souls Shelter, Trap-Neuter-Release-and-Manage (Malaysia). 

b. We have good connections with independent rescuers and other animal lover page groups. Some of these independent rescuers came and joined our adoption drive.

8. Disputes with other NGO

a. Disputes and fights with other NGOs or independent rescuers happened before KTAJ became a registered entity. It is so unfair to blame the current committee members to be responsible for these frictions. For your information, the current president and some of the committee members joined KTAJ in late 2012 when everything was already heated and damaged. 

b. We would like to call the former committee members (if they have the guts) to confirm this or else we will parade the chronology of the fight for the public to judge. We find this pointing fingers are so childish when we the current committee members have a lot to do!

9. Current Activities and Affairs

a. Since we do not shout out for donation from the public we will participate in any event to set up charity sale booth. We do not want you to merely donate, come and support us by buying our merchandise. We travel as far as to Penang up-north, and to Johor down-south. We do not provide lodging or mileage to these volunteers unless it is really necessary. All the money must go to the cats and dogs.

b. There are volunteers helping at Pusat Jagaan Kucing, Putrajaya and you can find them in some weekends wearing our NGO t-shirt. Do say hi to them!

c. Volunteers who left because they chose to leave, not because we forced them to. We are lacked of manpower here and what makes some people think we are shooing away our volunteers? However, being loyal to us doesn’t mean you can do wrong and get away with it. Being loyal and being right are two different things.

d. We do not let our volunteers to dive into media publicity be it on air or on papers. We, by all means, try to avoid these kind of publicities although we know these publicities help us. Normally we will push everyone to get involved in any interview and discourage individual interviews. ‘dengki’ perse, we don’t have such a trait. We do not need any limelight and we keep our profile low.

10. For every action there is reaction

This very Newton’s Law is applied in our lives. Rumours and hearsay travel faster than the speed of light. Haters will hate and that is what they are best at.

We urge the public to get a confirmed story before writing or publishing on the Internet. Our committee members are naturally approachable and friendly, try us by becoming our volunteer at our booth. You might be surprised with all the slander thrown at us.

We hope this issue is settled and should any of you have any doubts regarding our NGO, please write or contact our volunteers.  

With this lengthy explanation, we would like to move on. Thank you for all the supports and we hope you, our precious followers, will continue to support us. 

-Team KTAJ/SCRATCH-