In March 2001, The Anthony V. Martin Charitable Foundation was registered with the Charity Commission and I endowed it with start-up funds. It began work the same day, with myself and a lifelong Accountant friend as Trustees. My friend and fellow animal champion Peter Egan joined us as a Trustee in 2017.

One of the Foundation’s greatest achievements has been in China, working with Jill Robinson MBE and the charity she founded in 1998, Animals Asia. Together we have helped to develop community-based projects to end the barbaric cruelty faced by cats and dogs being slaughtered for food as well as the inhumane and unspeakably cruel practice of obtaining bile from living bears. With our funding Animals Asia has been able to work with over 150 welfare groups, veterinary teams and governments to benefit animals and people alike and has recently reported the number of dogs saved from an agonising death is now nearly a million. Changes in legislation were at the heart of this progress and it took time and funds to achieve.

I was very honoured to be asked in 2020 if Animals Asia may name one of their new Veterinary Teaching Hospitals in China after me – and I am pleased to say The Anthony Martin Veterinary Teaching Hospital is open and helping all animals in need in Chengdu province in Northern China.

In 2018 Foundation funds were used to support the Hope Project (later the Hope-Martin Project) in Barbados. This project was initiated to prevent the cruel and merciless culling of stray dogs – up to 7,000 a year – by the government. What the Government there didn’t tell tourists was that they destroyed the animals in a 30-year old gas chamber, which had an old Volkswagen engine attached to it. These were stray dogs that they didn’t want the tourists to see. It was barbaric, so I asked an English lady who lived there and ran the Hope Animal Sanctuary how we could stop this. We decided to build a “Neutering Bus” that would go from village to village on the island and neuter all strays and also pets of people who could not afford to do it themselves. I had 8 staff including 3 vets and an Education Officer who would visit schools and churches to educate the population about animal welfare. The bus was built, we had discussions with the government about changing the dog licensing laws, to encourage people to get their dogs neutered. The Health Minister, who was responsible for animal welfare, was very supportive and agreed to draw up legislation to achieve this. So over the next two/three years we neutered all around the island reduced the kill rate from 7,000 to 2,000 and convinced the government to get rid of the gas chamber and improve their programme to International Welfare Standards, which they did.

I am sure we would have achieved our goal of putting in place a permanent and humane resolution to the problem but regrettably a sudden election and a change in government in Barbados put paid to our plans as the new regime refused to even discuss a change in legislation. A bitter blow for everyone involved in the project and a tragic day for dogs on the island.

Today our Foundation supports over 40 charities all around the world and has distributed over £7m. We have never been afraid or been dissuaded from supporting causes helping animals – even if they are controversial. At this moment in time, the Foundation is partnering the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, providing the essential funds to bring about changes in legislation which will eradicate this particularly cruel activity from the world forever. For some reason – and I find this extremely hard to understand – it is an issue which divides parliament even though a complete ban on the import of “trophies” collected from animals killed when confined or caged - has enormous public support.

A final message to you and as a thank you for taking the time to read my words, would be for you live in peace, harmony, contentment and to know the joy to be found in making a contribution furthering all the good things we have in this world. You will not regret a minute of it.