Kyria Henry

Kyria Henry

At just 12 years old, Kyria Henry founded paws4people, and later paws4vets, training and pairing service dogs with children, seniors, seriously ill and disabled people, and war veterans needing assistance. A year-long sabbatical will allow Kyria to devote her full attention to the paws4vets program, providing service dogs to assist retired and active-duty military veterans as a tool to ease emotional, physical and psychological traumas and help them return to normal life.

“It was my simple dream to use dogs as a means of helping people.”

My name is Kyria Henry. At the age of 12 (in 1999) I founded the non-profit, paws4people. It was my simple dream to use dogs as a means of helping people.

With the assistance of my father, we launched a program with a mission to enhance the lives of special and regular education students, seniors, and those with serious illness or disability, by utilizing the “Special Powers” of canine companionship displayed by highly-trained Assistance Dogs, including: Mobility Service, Psychiatric Service, Educational Assistance, Rehabilitative Assistance, and Social-Therapy Dogs in specialized programs.

To date, paws4people has more than 160 dogs within its various programs. In all, paws4people has over 150 volunteers (no paid staff) and operates in nine states. In 2008, paws4people expanded, teaming up with the U.S. Army Wounded Warrior Program to create paws4vets, which trains Rehabilitative Assistance Dogs and Psychiatric Service Dogs for Veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and/or Traumatic brain Injury (TBI).

In early 2010, in concert with the U.S. Army Warrior Transition Battalion Ft. Stewart, GA paws4vets began its Wounded Warrior Assistance Dog Training Program (WWADTP). In fall 2010, we opened a second WWADTP within the Marine Corps Wounded Warrior Battalion—East Camp LeJeune, NC. Here, the Wounded Warriors are taught to train Assistance Dogs for other Wounded Warriors. This is also an adjunct therapeutic intervention program for the Wounded Warriors with PTSD, TBI and other psychological or physical disabilities. These are the first-ever WWADTP/PTSD Intervention Programs on active-duty military bases. We hope to continue expanding to assist more retired and active-duty military members, and their dependents.

Training dogs on a large scale, combined with the fact that we do not charge any client for our dogs or services, becomes an extremely costly endeavor. IKEA’s $100,000 grant would allow us to continue our work and expand in ways we currently cannot.

 

 

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