SPANA Vet Awarded Victory Medal by Central Veterinary Society
25 October 2005
SPANA's (Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad) Director of Veterinary Services, Karen Jones has been awarded a prestigious accolade in the form of the Central Veterinary Society's (CVS) Victory Medal.
The medal, which has been awarded since 1921 was given to Karen Jones in respect of her "..outstanding contribution to animal welfare overseas...".
Presenting the award at a meeting on Wednesday 19 October, CVS President Carl Boyde MRCVS said:
"Karen has been Veterinary Director at SPANA for the past three and a half years and has been extremely energetic in visiting and organising its animal health and welfare care in its centres in Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, Jordan, Ethiopia, Mali and Mauritania. She has also been a key factor in SPANA's successful intervention to care for animals in the refugee camps in Darfur, Sudan.
“Karen has developed a great rapport with SPANA's Directors in all these countries, and has been instrumental in raising treatment standards steadily in spite of all the constraints of finance and distance. I have had no hesitation in nominating Karen for the award of the prestigious Victory Medal of the Central Veterinary Society, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to animal welfare overseas.”
Notes to Editors
Biography – Karen Jones B.Vet.Med., M.Sc., MRCVS
Karen qualified from the Royal Veterinary College, London in 1987 and then spent 3 years in mixed, mainly large animal practice, in Herefordshire. In 1990 she went to Nepal for 3 years with VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas), where she taught animal health at an agricultural vocational training school. Before she returned she was Acting VSO Field Officer in Nepal for 4 months.
In 1993/94 she completed her M.Sc. in Tropical Veterinary Medicine at CTVM (Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine) at Edinburgh University (where she received a distinction and the Grieg Medal) and was then posted to Jordan as an Associate Professional Officer (APOS) with ODA (Overseas Development Administration, now DfID). She worked on a programme in the Eastern desert looking at improving the health and productivity of Bedouin sheep flocks. She returned to the UK in 1999 and went back into mixed practice (which was mainly small animal and equine) in Yorkshire.
Since 2002 she has been the Veterinary Director for SPANA (Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad), responsible for overseeing the veterinary work carried out in their overseas operations.
The Central Veterinary Society was established in 1870 and is a division of the British Veterinary Association. Previous recipients of the medal have included Sir David Attenborough, Sir Colin Spedding, Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior and Dame Olga Uvarov.
For More Information - Simon Pope - Head of Communications, SPANA - 020 7269 2689 or 07811 404 874
Or email simon@spana.org