Animal and Animal Rights Advocacy Summit 2022
What is AVA?
AVA, Animal and Animal Rights Advocacy Summit, is an annual conference for animal rights advocates and activists. It brings together the world’s leading advocates. The conference focuses on systemic change and lets participants work with various tactics, strategies, and approaches toward one shared goal: ending the use of animals in our food system and beyond.
I’m sitting in a huge conference hall at a hotel just outside Washington DC.. On stage stands Peter Singer, the philosopher behind Animal Liberation, speaking about the successes in the animal rights movement since his book was published in 1975. Just before Singer took the stage, he was introduced by Ryuji Chua, Surge Activism the video producer who just months ago sat in front of Trevor Noah and was interviewed about speciesism on The Daily Show. In the front rows, I spot Dr. Melanie Joy, author of numerous books on our relationship with animals and the person who coined and popularized the term carnism. Not far from her sits Dr. Michael Greger, author of the book How Not to Die and founder of nutritionfacts.orgLooking around the packed hall, I see countless people breaking new ground for animals, such as; Genesis Butler, Seb Alex, Tobias Leenaert, Esther Salomon, Almira Tanner and Naijha Wright-Brown. I’m surrounded by thousands of people, all passionate and working toward the same goal: total animal liberation. That’s what it’s like at the Animal and Animal Rights Advocacy Summit, one of the world’s largest animal rights conferences.
At the end of October, I was lucky enough to be sent to Washington DC to attend the AVA summit on behalf of Plantespringet — four days packed with talks, workshops, networking, and some activism.
"There is not going to be one way of reaching animal liberation - there will be thousands!"
Highlights
I thought a lot about how best to summarize the vast amount of impressions, knowledge, and inspiration I took in at the conference. I decided the best way to share it with you is to highlight some of the best experiences. Here are five of the things I found most inspiring.
Best workshop
Movement Strategy with Esther Salomon from Animal Think Tank.
The very first activity of the conference was this workshop, which truly made an impression on me.
What made me choose this as the best workshop was actually its very inspiring start. After a brief introduction to Animal Think Tank, a speech was given about non-human animals. It was meant to remind us why we fight and who we fight for. After the speech, we held a minute of silence.
Starting the workshop this way was powerful and motivating, and I was even allowed to take a copy of the speech home so we can do something similar in Dyrenes Alliance.
After that, we were introduced to different tools to consider when developing tactics, campaigns, and milestones in our work toward total animal liberation.
Best keynote
Making Animal Liberation a Reality with Leah Garces from Mercy for Animals.
On Friday morning, the first keynote was delivered, filled with inspiring words from Leah Garces, CEO of Mercy for Animals. The speech began with the words: “There is not going to be one way of reaching animal liberation - there will be thousands!”.
In her speech, she outlined five key areas where the movement must improve to make animal liberation a reality.
Value people:
To be a strong movement, we must ensure as many activists as possible can earn a living fighting for animals. That means fair pay and good working conditions. For those we can’t employ, we must do all we can to educate, value, and empower them in other ways.
Expand who leads and is a part of the movement:
We must work to make the movement more diverse and inclusive. In other words: it can’t only be white, cisgender, heterosexual men leading the movement.
Build solidarity with non-animal-rights allies:
We must do better at working in solidarity with other social justice movements (e.g., climate activism, anti-racism, LGBTQIA+ rights). When we are true allies, we create allies in return.
Raise issue salience:
We must change the dominant societal narrative that it’s acceptable to treat animals as we do. Awareness of animals’ horrific conditions must be normalized.
Be bold:
We need to stop doing things that don’t work and be fearless about trying new approaches no one has tried before.
Most inspiring organization
Apex Advocacy is a nonprofit animal rights organization developing grassroots activism and campaigns to empower BIPOC communities to defend animal rights, while raising awareness about how the animal industry disproportionately harms BIPOC. They do this through campaigns like No Backyard Slaughter, which fights against “backyard slaughterhouses” located mainly in BIPOC communities. They focus on this because BIPOC communities are disproportionately impacted by the industry but often lack resources to fight the cruelty occurring in their own neighborhoods.
Apex Advocacy also created the website blackanimalrightseverything.com
On the site, you can find a broad selection of Black-owned animal rights businesses. These are not only food-related businesses but also a range of consciously animal-rights aware companies.
I strongly recommend checking out the site when you need something new. There’s a huge lack of funding for BIPOC, even within the animal rights movement, so this is a fantastic way to put your money somewhere meaningful. Most businesses listed are currently US-based but many offer international shipping. You can also suggest Black-owned animal rights businesses outside the US that should be added.
Most inspiring initiative
Afro Animal Rights Society's National Afro-Animal Rights Conference Virtual Summit 2022
Afro-Animal Rights Society is a US nonprofit whose mission is to provide resources and support to help people in marginalized communities switch to a vegan lifestyle.
Part of that support is their annual virtual conference: National Afro-Animal Rights Conference Virtual Summit 2022. Organized by Black animal rights activists, the conference aims to increase inclusion of marginalized groups in the animal rights movement.
The conference seeks to address the barriers in vulnerable areas that make living plant-based difficult. It also works to boost efforts including animal rights activism—and the benefits it brings—in the cultural shift we’re in the middle of.
The conference is this Saturday, free and open to all.
Register here.
Most inspiring activist
Genesis Butler
If you don’t already know her, I highly recommend following her! Genesis is just a 15-year-old animal rights and climate activist who also fights broadly for social justice. She drew major attention to animal rights as an essential part of the solution to the climate crisis when she gave a TEDx talk in 2017. She’s founded her own global climate organization, Youth Climate Save, which focuses on the negative climate impacts of animal agriculture.
She is also the founder of Genesis for Animals, a nonprofit raising funds for animal sanctuaries worldwide. She has won multiple awards for her activism and was featured on the Marvel Hero Project. What impresses me most is that on her own initiative she became vegan at just 6 years old and inspired her entire family to follow suit. Oh, and she’s related to Cesar Chavez.
There was so much inspiration at the AVA conference that I could easily write 20 pages about it, but I’ll stop here. If you want to read about various speakers and organizations that participated, you can do soon the conference website.
If you ever get the chance to attend events like this, whether in person or online, I just want to say do it! It’s deeply motivating to be surrounded by people all fighting for a better future — a future where animals are free from human exploitation and oppression.
I believe we will get there one day. As Sharon Núñez from Animal Equality said in her keynote: “We are one movement, making history.”
Bonus info
Finally, I want to share a very relevant bonus recommendation. At the conference, I met Steven Rouk, founder of Connect for Animals. Connect for Animals is a brand-new platform (still very early-stage) intended to unite animal rights activists worldwide. They already have an amazing newsletter that sends updates twice a week on events relevant to animal rights activists. Physical events are mainly in the US and Canada so far, but there are plenty of online events listed — and it aims to be global in the future. I’m already thrilled to be subscribed and highly recommend you sign up right here.
