07/05/2026

AISPA — The Anglo-Italian Society for the Protection of Animals — has once again made its timely donation to cover part of the running costs of the Montaione Recovery Centre. A contribution that has been renewed every year since 2010 and has, over time, become one of the economic pillars sustaining the association's daily work.

The confirmation came in a letter signed by Andy Geddes, on behalf of the AISPA board of directors, communicating the grant following the assessment of the Refuge Report Form submitted by IHP for 2026. Among the items included in the funding application was a motorised cart for moving fodder and materials within the Centre: AISPA chose to include this purchase in its Annual Appeal to supporters, inviting IHP to allocate a portion of the donation specifically to this piece of equipment.

Who AISPA is and why its support matters

This is no ordinary supporter. AISPA — based in London — is an organisation with deep roots and a history that considerably predates IHP itself. Founded as the Hawksley Society for the Protection of Animals and Birds in Italy and later reconstituted in its current form in 1952, its origins lie in the work of Leonard Hawksley, a young Englishman who arrived in Italy at the end of the nineteenth century and found himself unable to remain indifferent to the conditions in which working animals were kept. Horses and mules spurred relentlessly, forced on with bits reinforced with nails, beaten in the streets of Naples and Rome: what Hawksley witnessed was not isolated cruelty, but a system.

He worked to change it for decades, at serious personal cost — he was attacked and lost the use of one eye — founding dozens of animal protection societies, contributing to the establishment of the Italian Blue Cross during the First World War and saving thousands of horses and mules employed at the front. To those who asked why a foreigner should concern himself with the animals of a country that was not his own, he replied with a phrase that has endured: "Because animals have no nationality."

From that legacy grew an organisation that still today raises funds around the world and channels them towards Italian organisations engaged in animal protection. IHP joined this network in 2010, when AISPA decided for the first time to support a project dedicated specifically to horses and other equines.

Fifteen years of continuity

The relationship between the two organisations has never been interrupted. Over these fifteen years, AISPA's support has helped cover management costs, veterinary care and works at the Centre, in a context where IHP operates without ministerial funding and without reimbursement from the Public Prosecutor's offices for the animals seized and placed in its judicial custody.

"If we have kept going and grown over these years, we owe it to those who believed in us from the very beginning," said president Sonny Richichi. "AISPA's support is not only financial: it is confirmation that the work we do is recognisable and credible beyond Italy's borders."

AISPA carries out periodic visits — including unannounced ones — to the projects it funds, in order to verify that standards are being maintained. A transparency that IHP shares and values.