Fayoum Art Center Holds Competition to Save Stray Dogs From Poisoning

A few days ago, a hotel in the village of Tunis submitted a complaint to Fayoum's government about the stray dogs that live in the area. In response, Fayoum spread poison along the streets, putting down almost 30 stray dogs - and due to the indiscriminate nature of these killings, a number of pets were poisoned as well. Among the dead was a dog who belonged to Ibrahim Abla, director of the Fayoum Art Center, who was driven into action.

"What happened was inhumane," Abla said. "We woke up to a terrible tragedy. Seeing dogs die that way is already difficult enough, and then we lost our family's dog because of it too. I fear that what happened to the dogs in Tunis is nothing but one of an endless series of massacres. That is why we decided to organize this campaign to vaccinate dogs rather than kill them."

Abla launched a huge campaign on social media and throughout Tunis called 'No to Killing, Yes to Vaccination', treating 50 dogs across the village and 20 more with the vets at Fayoum's Youssef Al-Seddik Center. And as an extension of that campaign, the Fayoum Art Center has started a competition called 'Why Do You Kill Me?', inviting artists from anywhere in the world to denounce dog poisonings and killings, and help raise awareness on the importance of vaccination and mercy, through art.

The art centre will accept artworks in any style as long as it's on an A4 or A3-sized canvas, and any number of artworks can be submitted alongside the artist's CV as long as it reaches them before October 5th.