People and working animals
Research support for courses and studies on how people and working animals affect each other's wellbeing.
Why it matters
Where people and working animals share hard lives, the welfare of each affects the other. Programmes that care for both are rare, and the evidence for what helps is thin.
What we are doing
Uthando supports academics developing a continuing-education short course and research proposals on how people and working animals affect each other's wellbeing, with animal welfare and violence prevention at the centre. The contribution is structural: turning academic content into submission-ready course documents, budgets and responses to reviewers.
Stage: An academic course and research proposals in development with university partners. This is research support, not a therapy service.
What the technology does
Described at the level of what it does, not how it is built. Methods, models and data stay private until their owners decide how to protect and share them.
- Version-controlled course and proposal documents, so every change is traceable
- Budget models that show their assumptions
- Plain-language summaries for funders and communities
- ALOODA review before anything is submitted
The ALOODA path for this programme
Every Uthando programme runs on the same standard operating procedure: six steps and a confidence gate before anything is acted on or published. Read the ALOODA white paper.
- AAttention
The welfare of people and working animals is rarely treated together.
- LListening
Academics, animal welfare practitioners and communities.
- OObserve
What the research literature shows, and where it is thin.
- OOrient
Animal welfare and human dignity carry equal weight; no claim outruns the evidence.
- DDecide
Support a course and research proposals before any community programme.
- 95The 95% gate
No health or wellbeing outcome is claimed without ethics-approved research behind it.
- AAct
Submit, revise with reviewers, and run studies only after ethics approval.
From proof to scale, gate by gate
Nothing moves to the next stage until its gate is passed and evidenced. Honest about where it stands today.
Prove
Show that the problem is real and the approach works: research, a prototype, ethics approvals and first evidence.
Gate: The core claim passes the ALOODA 95% gate.
Pilot
Run it with real people in one setting, under a written agreement, against a baseline.
Gate: Pilot results are verified and every safeguard has worked in practice.
Blueprint
Write the model down so others can run it: the SOP, data standard, training, costs, legal checklist and licence terms.
Gate: An independent partner runs it from the blueprint alone.
Scale
Replicate through partners across sites and countries, under each country's law and with local consent.
Gate: A local compliance check passes before each new country.
Next gate for this programme: Course approval and ethics approval for the first study.
The rules this programme follows
- Not a therapy, counselling or treatment service, and no health or clinical outcome claims (Health Professions Act).
- Any research with people goes to a registered research ethics committee first (NHREC guidelines).
- Any work with animals goes to an animal ethics committee (SANS 10386) and respects the Animals Protection Act.
- Organisations named only with their written agreement.
How these laws and standards apply across Uthando: Standards and governance.
Dated, on file, checkable
| When | Record | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Feb to Jun 2026 | Short-course documents and research proposals prepared with university academics | In development |
Held back on purpose
- Partner institutions and academics
- Proposal content and budgets
Records are available to funders and partners under a non-disclosure agreement.
Fund it, partner on it, or test the evidence
Tell Thando what you have in mind. Uthando replies personally.