NOW that the New Year is here - the last in this Millennium - many of your readers will have made resolutions to change their lifestyles, take up new hobbies, join a club or do some charity work.

Paws for Kids can offer them a real opportunity to do all that and make a difference to people's lives, with its pioneering Pet Fostering Project funded by the National Lottery Charities Board. We will be "fostering" the pets of women and children escaping from violence in the home. Previously, there had been nowhere for these pets to go, and mums were forced to either get rid of their pets or stay to suffer more abuse and cruelty.

Paws for Kids needs two sorts of help: Women volunteers (who live in the Bolton, Chorley, Wigan and Leigh areas) to help us run the service; and anyone in the North West willing to take in much-loved pets while their owners move to refuges and wait for safe alternatives to their violent pasts. We need a range of caring loving homes for a range of different animals.

This project is the first of its kind in Britain.

If any of your readers want to get involved, we will give them more details if they phone or fax us on 01204 698999, or write to us at PO Box 329, Bolton. BL6 5FT.

Mandy Knott

Development Officer

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.