Karen Menczer, Founder/Director, Animal-Kind International
Thursday, November 12th, 2026, 4:00 p.m.
Botts Hall, Albuquerque Special Collections Library
423 Central NE, Albuquerque, NM (Central & Edith)
November’s talk will take you on a 35-year animal welfare journey, starting in the 1990s, from Latin America to the Caribbean to Africa. The speaker will discuss international animal rescue from the early days on up to the present. The lecture will look at how one organization, Animal-Kind International, maneuvers in this new world. It will examine the need for AKI, as well as its role and activities, including funding animal welfare organizations and providing technical support.
Karen Menczer’s commitment to international animal welfare began in 1987 while doing research in the Galapagos and was further shaped in 1991 when she began her career with the USAID in biodiversity conservation. During her time with USAID, she connected with local animal welfare organizations wherever she was stationed. In 1997, she moved to Uganda, where she became co-founder of the Uganda SPCA, and later worked in Jamaica, Botswana, and Ghana. After returning to the US in 2007, Karen founded Animal-Kind International (AKI), one of the few institutional funders of animal welfare organizations in Africa and Latin America. In 2009, she worked for the Millennium Challenge Account in Namibia, and then settled in Jemez Springs, NM, working as a USAID consultant while continuing to lead AKI. After receiving her USAID “stop work orders” in 2025, her time has been focused on AKI.
$15 for AIA Members; $20 for Non-Members; Students under 30 with ID – Free.
Pay online or mail check made out to AIA by November 10th to: AIA, PO Box 92921, Albuquerque, NM 87199.
