12/03/2026
👏Thank you to everyone who attended our Aberhonddu Angels WI meeting on Tuesday evening for a truly inspiring talk from Maureen Hand, who joined us with her Indian rescue dog, Blue. (Indian street dogs like Blue are an ancient landrace breed, dating back thousands of years.)🐕
🙏Maureen shared the fascinating journey that the two of them have been on together and transported us to Varkala, India, where she first decided to start Operation Street Dog. It quickly became clear that we had only just touched the surface of Maureen’s remarkable life story. She spoke about her youth in London, being asked to “leave” school, her experiences with religion, and the moment she realised she was a little different.😁
🇮🇳As a young woman she travelled to India, where her love of dogs and one of her life’s purposes came together, and Operation Street Dog was born. Her charity work provides food, care and medical help to street dogs in need, with the main aim of humanely controlling the street dog population through vital sterilisation programmes, helping to prevent mass culling and unnecessary suffering for these remarkable dogs.
💖Along the way, her work even resulted in her becoming a “wanted woman” by the local Indian police! However, through education and persistence she has won over many local people, who now understand and support her work. Despite the challenges, Maureen continues to manage Operation Street Dog from Brecon and travels to Varkala whenever she can to support her dedicated volunteers.
It was lovely to be part of the Brecon Women’s Festival.
If you would like to find out more, about Maureens work please visit: www.operationstreetdogvarkala.com…..there is a great video to watch. 👀
Thank you to Maureen (Mo) and Blue for sharing such an extraordinary story with us.
Our next Aberhonddu Angels WI meeting will be in May – see our bio for more details.
With best wishes,
Aberhondu Angels WI
