This week besides other animal conservation days/weeks is really important. Now, why is that? What is something so different about them? Nothing really, they do their jobs. Their jobs are looking out for those oppressed by the society, the unvoiced, the unrepresentable, the really miserly put positions of the part of the society.
I'll paint a picture for you, imagine you see a friend mistreat a street dog, kick it or abuse it. You do not raise your voice because it was an isolated event. This happens a lot, this event becomes a daily routine thing, the dog is mistreated and abused, not only by your friend but by almost every passer-by. One day you go to meet this friend of yours and realize he has a puppy. Tell me right now honestly, would you not be angry at him? Would you feel safe leaving that newborn child at his place?
Don't worry, you are no different from this person either. You never stopped that person from acting like a jerk.
Animal Shelters help animals find their way home. A lot of people treat their pets as they are nothing and when they become incapable of providing health care or the dog/cat/ or whatever animal they chose to take care of becomes a 'burden', these people leave them in the animal shelter. In most cases regardless of any mistreatments, the animal undergoes depression and abandonment issues. These heroic animal shelters take them in and nurture them back to health. Mostly these shelters are run by the local government and some are private.
Animals often brought here are from rescue operations in case of wild animals, they are either hurt or have accidentally entered a human settlement. Usually, this is a two-three day operation unless it is for animals such as snakes. From there, these animals are taken to the animal shelters, and later after the recovery are left in the wild to join their family.
The job of a rescue operator or an animal shelter volunteer isn't rewarding at all, because the animals don't turn around to say thank you, but every time that they see an animal run free, they know in their hearts they did a good job!