Animal and Vegan Advocacy Summit 2022
What is AVA?
AVA, the Animal and Vegan Advocacy Summit, is an annual conference for vegan and animal rights advocates. The conference brings together the world's most important advocates. The conference focuses on systemic change and allows participants to work with different tactics, strategies and approaches towards one common vision: to remove animals from our food system and other human uses.
I'm sitting in a very large conference room in a hotel just outside Washington DC. On stage is Peter Singer, the philosopher behind Animal Liberation, talking about successes in the animal rights movement since the book was published in 1975. Shortly before Singer took the stage, he was introduced by Ryuji Chua, the Surge Activsm video producer who just a few months ago sat in front of Trevor Noah and was interviewed about speciesism on The Daily Show. In the front rows of the audience, I spot Dr. Melanie Joy, the author of countless books on our relationship with animals and the person who coined and spread the term carnism. Not far from her sits Dr. Michael Greger, author of How Not to Die and the person behind nutritionfacts.org. Looking around me in the packed room, I can see a myriad of people doing groundbreaking work for animals, people like; Genesis Butler, Seb Alex, Tobias Leenaert, Esther Salomon, Almira Tanner and Naijha Wright-Brown. I'm surrounded by thousands of people who are all passionate and working for the same thing: complete animal liberation. That's what it's like to be at the Animal and Vegan 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 Dyrenes Alliance - four days packed to the brim with presentations, workshops, networking and a little activism.
“There is not going to be one way of reaching animal liberation - there will be thousands!”
Highlights
I've been thinking a lot about how best to summarise the vast amount of impressions, knowledge and inspiration that I brought to the conference. And I've concluded that the best way to share it with you is by highlighting some of the best experiences. Here are 5 of the things I was most inspired by at the conference.
Best workshop
Movement Strategy with Esther Salomon from Animal Think Tank.
The very first activity of the conference was this workshop, which really made an impression on me.
What made me choose this workshop as the best was actually its very inspiring beginning. After a short introduction by the Animal Think Tank, there was a talk about the non-human animals. A speech that aims to remind us why we fight and who we fight for. After the speech we had a minute of silence.
Starting the workshop this way was really powerful and motivating, and I actually got to take a copy of the speech home so we can do something similar in the future in DA.
We were then introduced to different tools we can use when considering tactics, campaigns and sub-goals in our work for complete animal liberation.
Best keynote
Making Animal Liberation a Reality with Leah Gares of Mercy for Animals.
On Friday morning, the first keynote was held and it was filled with inspiring words from Leah Gares, 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 presented 5 main areas in which she believes the movement must improve if we are to make animal liberation a reality.
Value people:
To be a strong movement, we need to make sure that as many activists as possible can make a living fighting for animals. This means that we need to provide decent wages and good working conditions. For those we are unable to employ, we must do everything 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 billing more diverse and inclusive. In other words: We need to make sure it's not just white, cis, straight men leading the movement.
Build solidarity with non-animal-rights allies:
We need to be better at working in solidarity with other social justice movements (e.g. the climate movement, the anti-racist movement and the LGBTQIA+ rights movement). When we are truly allied, we create allies.
Raise issue salience:
We need to change the dominant societal narrative that says it's okay to treat animals the way we do. Knowledge about the horrific conditions of animals must be normalized.
Be bold:
We need to stop doing things that don't work and not be afraid to try new things that no one has done before.
Most inspiring organisation
Apex Advocacy is a non-profit animal advocacy organization that develops grassroots activism and various campaigns to strengthen BIPOC's ability to defend animal rights while raising awareness about how the animal industry disproportionately affects BIPOC. One way they do this is through their No Backyard Slaughter campaign, which focuses on fighting "backyard slaughterhouses" located in predominantly BIPOC communities. They do this because BIPOC is disproportionately affected by the industry, but often lacks the resources to fight back against the cruelty taking place in their communities.
Apex Advocacy has also set up the website blackveganeverything.com
On the website, you can find a large selection of black-owned vegan businesses. These outlets are not only vegan food-related businesses, you will also find a wide variety of other conscious vegan businesses.
I would highly recommend checking out the website when you need something new. There is a huge lack of funding for BIPOC, including in the animal rights movement, so this is a great opportunity to put your money somewhere meaningful. Most outlets on the website right now are US, but many of them offer international shipping. You can also submit business to them if you have ideas for black-owned vegan businesses outside the US that should be added.
Most inspiring initiative
Afro Vegan Societys National Afro-Vegan Conference Virtual Summit 2022
The Afro-Vegan Society is an American non-profit organization whose mission is to provide resources and support to help people in marginalized communities transition to a vegan lifestyle.
Part of the support they've developed is their annual virtual conference, the National Afro-Vegan Conference Virtual Summit 2022. Organized by African-American vegans, the conference aims to foster greater inclusion of marginalized groups in the vegan movement.
The conference seeks to address the barriers that exist in vulnerable areas that make it difficult to live plant-based. At the same time, they want to strengthen efforts to include veganism (and the benefits it has) in the great cultural shift we are in the midst of.
The conference is now on Saturday, it is free and open to all.
You can register here.
Most inspiring activist
Genesis Butler
If you don't already know her, I highly recommend following her here! Genesis is a 15-year-old animal rights and climate activist who also fights for social justice more broadly. She raised awareness of veganism as an indispensable part of the solution to the climate crisis when she gave a TEDx talk in 2017. She has started her global climate organization, Youth Climate Save, which focuses on the negative impact animal agriculture has on the climate.
She is also the founder of Genesis for Animals, a non-profit that raises money for animal sanctuaries around the world. She has received numerous awards for her activism and has been part of the Marvel Hero Project. What I am personally most impressed with is that she became vegan on her initiative at the age of 6 and inspired her entire family to follow in her footsteps. And oh yeah, 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'd better stop here. If you want to read a bit about the various speakers and organisations that participated in the conference, you can do so on the conference website.
If you ever get the chance to participate in this kind of event, whether physical or online, I just want to say do it! It's deeply motivating to be surrounded by people who are 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, and as Sharon Núñez of Animal Equality said in her keynote speech, "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, the founder of Connect for Animals. Connect for Animals is a brand new platform (still in a very early stage) that should eventually bring together animal rights activists worldwide. They already have an amazing newsletter that sends updates twice a week about events relevant to animal rights activists. The physical events are still mainly in the US and Canada, but there are plenty of online events in the listings too - and eventually, it should go global. I'm already super happy to be signed up, and I recommend all of you do the same right here.
