Adopt a Rat

You can be a part of e-RAT-icating the dangers posed by landmines and curbing the spread of tuberculosis, by adopting a rat today!

Our “Adopt-A-Rat” program is a great way to gain insight into our work, through the eyes of our HeroRATs. Through the program, you will discover how an average African Pouched Rat learns to be HeroRAT. You’ll see how they are gently guided through the process by their trusted teachers, friends, and colleagues – their trainers. Supporters receive a login to the membership section of our site and can follow their rat’s progress throughout the various training stages, and hopefully into the real minefield or behind the scenes detecting tuberculosis.

Because the true cost to train a rat is higher than the average person is able to contribute, our program is a shared adoption. So we must say, please don’t expect to find Ziko, Kim, or Big Boy on your doorstep tomorrow! They will remain hard at work with us, but we promise they are in good hands.

The contributions we receive go towards the food, training, materials, housing, and transport of our HeroRATs. Because we are still a growing organization, and the campaign is run by only a handful of very dedicated individuals, we have only placed a few of our champion HeroRATs, or those in training, on the site for adoption. Those on the site are at various stages of reaching the point where they are fully funded by public support. In the case of our most popular rats, who have already reached their funding goal, excess funds will support their colleagues who have not yet been added to the site. We have over 300 rats in Tanzania in various stages of their training, breeding, and work with our research, and your support goes a long way to further their work.

Adopting a HeroRAT comes with a number of perks including:

• An official HeroRAT adoption certificate.
• Access to the membership section of our website so you can follow your rat’s progress.
• Email access to the HeroRAT team to contact us, your rat, or your trainer, should you have any questions about our work.
• Updates posted to the membership section when the rat passes major training or working milestones.

The minimum cost per adopter is 5 Euros per month. Monthly support makes it easy for us to plan and budget, but we have both monthly and annual adoptions available. Just click the adopt button on any page and chose the level of support that fits your budget. Thank you for your contributions – they are vital in ensuring the continuation of our HeroRATs’ important work.

Contributions can be made via credit card, or if you wish to pay via bank transfer please see the list of country foundations on our donate page that accept donations on our behalf. For tax deductable or tax effective giving, contributions must be made through one of the foundations we work with. We apologize for this inconvenience, as a small international organization it is quite resource intensive to establish tax deductable/tax effective status in every country we work in. Thank you for your understanding and support.