A year in review from GARC’s CEO

As we come to the end of another year, I want to reflect on what we have accomplished before the new year starts. Despite the uncertainty around global public health, I want to look back on a monumental year, filled with significant achievements for GARC. Achievements that have allowed us to strengthen the work that we do around the world. A few highlights from 2025 stood out to me personally, and I want to share these with you.

If teamwork is summarized as the ability to work together toward a common vision, the GARC team can only be summarized as ‘unparalleled’. With our expanded team of experts, we have managed to grow our global reach and impact over the course of the year. In fact, using our fit-for-purpose tools and resources, our small team now provide technical support and capacity building to stakeholders in more than 35 countries around the world. In celebration of our commitment to rabies elimination, we not only refined our mission statement, but we also adopted a new brand identity that I believe acts as a visual reminder of our promise to end rabies and empower communities. Our refined mission statement provides additional clarity that continues to guide our core activities focused on building and strengthening the capacity of communities living in rabies-endemic countries. 

As a result of our relentless efforts over the course of the year, our dedicated programs have extended their reach and impact. The Communities Against Rabies initiative continues to build the capacity of both individuals and organizations alike. At the end of 2025, we have recognized 1585 Dog Health Champions and 27 Rabies Centers of Excellence around the world. These GARC-recognized agents of change are working with GARC to eliminate rabies at the community-level where the burden of the disease is often highest. In support of their ongoing efforts, we are promoting dedicated advocacy campaigns like our ‘Champions in Action’ (individuals) and ‘Excellence in Action’ (organizations) features to bring stakeholders’ efforts to our global audience’s attention.

In addition, our Future Rabies Champions program, implemented across eight countries, has ensured that more than 550,000 children have been reached with life-saving knowledge about rabies, dog bite prevention, and how to live harmoniously alongside dogs. And this is just the start, because the goal is to reach 15 million children by 2038!

We also celebrated another successful World Rabies Day. With a theme of ‘Act now: You, Me, Community’, 380 registered World Rabies Day events were celebrated across 49 countries. We also received a record-breaking number of World Rabies Day Award entries, with 106 people submitting applications. Seeing how the global community came together to focus their attention on rabies elimination is truly inspiring. It keeps us motivated to provide the much-needed support that we provide daily. It also reminds us of the impact that rabies has on communities across the world and their desire to eliminate the disease.

While these achievements, and many more, were facilitated by GARC’s dedicated team, none of what we have achieved over the course of the year would have been possible without our organizational partners. Partners like – Battersea, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Four Paws South Africa and our institutional and individual donors, share our vision of collaboration and work alongside us, on a daily basis.

Thank you to everyone that shares our vision for a world free from dog rabies and offers their support for better animal welfare and animal/human health in communities across the world. Through their unwavering support and collaboration, we are helping to protect communities against this most deadly disease.

We look forward to continuing our momentum as we go into 2026. We will continue with our mission to eliminate human and animal deaths from dog-mediated rabies by building and strengthening the capacity of local, national and global stakeholders.