Candace Laughinghouse

Candace Laughinghouse

by and | Apr 13, 2018 | Contemporary, Photo Interviews

“Womanism is about using your own experience to bring
a voice to the voiceless.”

 

C andace Laughinghouse is a powerhouse of a woman. PhD student in theology and ethics, wife, and mother to three young girls, Laughinghouse is changing the conversation about animal rights in theological and religious circles –– and far beyond. It’s easy to see why everyone from religious figures to leading feminists to African American activists are sitting up and listen when Laughinghouse speaks. She is funny, real, and paints an intimate picture of her family life, telling me how her daughter loves hooting her favorite word – “Poop!” – in public.

Growing up in Oakland California, Laughinghouse was raised in the folds of the Pentecostal tradition, in a church started by her great-grandfather. Her grandfather and father were both pastors, her stepfather a preacher. “The women were preachers, they didn’t call the women preachers though, that’s a whole other thing,” she says, laughing. Like most things with Laughinghouse, it’s a subject we’ll come back to from several angles.

Surrounded by cousins, life in Oakland was about church, music, and family. She was raised in a single parent home until she was nine years old. “I didn’t know we were struggling then. We were eating TV dinners and I thought we were rich… Early on, my mother let me know happiness was not in things.”

The only daughter of a single mother and a fierce grandmother who only recently passed away, Laughinghouse credits the support of strong women for the path she has taken. Though her grandmother would not have defined herself as one, Laughinghouse says the family matriarch was every bit a womanist – a term coined by author and social justice activist Alice Walker to refer to black feminism, which uses the voices and experiences of black women to challenge oppressive systems.

From an early age, her mother sent her to a school where the students came from diverse backgrounds. “She wanted me to experience something different than what we were a part of. That was the earliest stage of me understanding intersectionality… seeing how other people think, and being among others. That comes into the work that I do with having empathy.”

In fact, empathy is a theme that comes through strongly when Laughinghouse speaks about her work challenging patriarchy within the church – a community and faith that remains a strong part of her identity.

That was the earliest stage of me understanding intersectionality… seeing how other people think, and being among others.

Currently completing her PhD on the topic of theology and ethics, Laughinghouse came to study animal rights through a twist of fate. She was applying to law school when she heard about a joint degree in law and seminary studies at Emory University. She didn’t get into law school, but she began at the seminary school where the first class she took was in black church studies. Coming from a Pentecostal church, she says: “I thought I was going to teach these people, and then they started critiquing a lot of black church theologies that are responsible for sexism. I was really offended, I was trying to defend the church I was a part of; I was really challenged.” The experience taught her how to critique her own beliefs, while still honouring where she’s from.

It was in that first class that she began to study women in black Pentecostal churches and womanism. Soon after, an advisor suggested she look at the religious concept of the “breath of life” in animals, and she realised that a womanist theology could be used to challenge all forms of oppression, including of animals.

She decided to switch her focus. Finding that the majority of scholars writing about animal rights from a theological perspective were white men, Laughinghouse decided to chart her own path, bringing her unique voice as an African American woman to the subject of animals in religious theory. “Womanism is about using your own experience to bring a voice to the voiceless,” she explains.

Drawing on her own ancestry, Laughinghouse looks at animal rights from a framework of African and indigenous worldviews, incorporating principles of ecology founded in the interconnection of humanity, nature, and spirit. Her unique approach sees caring for the earth and for animals as both a religious and feminist action. By fighting against oppression of animals, she says, we are fighting all forms of oppression; and by caring for animals we are caring for all of creation, including ourselves. For Laughinghouse, that includes having a vegan diet: “If I’m going to be connected with nature, that involves the food that I eat.”

Standing at the intersection of so many schools of thought, Laughinghouse often finds herself an outlying voice in her communities: a womanist and vegan in theology circles, a woman of colour in animal circles, and an animal advocate in Pentecostal and African American circles.

Womanism is about using your own experience to bring a voice to the voiceless.

So how does she process standing apart in these movements? “Sometimes I feel alone, and I question whether I’m good enough, whether I should be doing this work,” she admits. But growing up in schools filled with such diverse peoples and worldviews, and attending a college where less than 5% of students were African American taught her the importance of communication, of finding a way to connect.

“How are you going to use your voice?” She asks. “When you have a truth, how are you going to make sure it’s received? If it’s negative, if it’s not constructive, then no one will hear it.” Laughinghouse approaches discussion about feminism and animal rights within her communities with respect and compassion. She sees hope in building connections with others, believing that they will reveal the ways in which we’re alike rather than how we’re different, while still refusing to compromise the hard truths involved in the fight for justice for nature, humanity and non-human animals.

If I’m going to be connected with nature, that involves the food that I eat.

She is forthright in encouraging all people, but particularly women, to build these connections. “Your voice has to be heard. And there’s so much power when we not only just speak up but when we come together. Find other women to support, work together.”

So what’s next for the woman who is managing to write her PhD in the stolen moments between taking her daughters to gymnastics, chess, Bible study, play dates, grading papers and speaking to her church leaders about animal issues? “My husband always says: “Finish that PhD so you can get a J.O.B,” she laughs. But that is just the beginning. Her dream is to teach, to speak at schools around the country, and bring animal rights courses into diverse subject areas at colleges, demonstrating the interconnectedness of a variety of human and animal issues. It’s no small task.

“I may not see the end but I’ve got a job to do. And I’m gonna be a part of this.” After all, she reminds herself, “It’s something much greater than you.”

Photos by Jo-Anne McArthur. Interview and text by Anna Mackiewicz.

Avalon Llewellyn

Avalon Llewellyn

by and | Mar 22, 2018 | Contemporary, Photo Interviews

“I see my activism as a holistic attempt to educate young people.”

 

Avalon Llewellyn. All photos by Jo-Anne McArthur/Unbound Project.

“Just a reminder,” Avalon Llewellyn typed into her phone. “Hosting a VEGAN MEETUP ON SATURDAY!”

T he post on her Instagram account, @tiedyedtofu_, quickly amassed hundreds of likes. When the day came, two dozen people turned out, most of them in their mid- to late-teens, like Llewellyn. They were snacking on vegan doughnuts and sharing recipes and stories at a park in Llewellyn’s native Australia when her phone buzzed. It was one of her 12,000-plus followers, interested in joining the group but hesitant.

“She was 50 or 100 meters away and she didn’t know if she could come or not because she wasn’t vegan,” Llewellyn recalls. “She was so nervous. I think she was about 14. She said, ‘Do you think I can come along? Will everyone hate me?’”

Llewellyn assured her the meetup was judgement-free and open to all.

“She sat down and asked us so many questions,” Llewellyn says. “She went away with so much knowledge.”

Avalon Llewellyn

Now 17, Llewellyn first tried giving up meat when she was 12, around the time she launched her Instagram account. At 13, she went vegan, and in the years since she has helped inspire countless others to do the same. Her target audience is young people, and her main tool is online activism, although her efforts extend well past social media. At 15, she published a 100-page ebook, “The Modern Guide to Going Vegan at a Young Age.” In addition to in-person meetups, she mentors peers over email.

In all of her outreach, she aims to be approachable and understanding, a tack that she says works.

“I always say, ‘My direct messages are open. I’ll be your big sister. Email me about anything,’” explains Llewellyn, who is warm, articulate and brimming with dreams and ideas for the future. “I used to eat meat myself, and I was quite oblivious, so I approach it with kindness.”

There are lots of things for people going vegan, but what I found was there was almost nothing for young people who are still living with parents, who can’t choose everything. So I kept that in mind.

About her Instagram account, where she makes most of her connections, she says, “I seek a balance between education on animal rights, education on veganism, highlighting the wonderful world of vegan food, and posts to remind people I am just your average young person.”

“Even though I am surrounded by incredibly supportive friends, I feel that veganism and living ethically is isolating. But then young people message me and I’m reminded that this sacrifice of the social norm and easy life is shared by thousands of young people out there.”
“Sometimes all you need to do is to look in their eyes to know somebody is home.” (Photo by another activist.)
“There are so many stories I hear that need to be told. Especially in this world where the line between truth and lies have blurred. On racism, on animal rights, on politics, on life.”

Now in her last year of high school, Llewellyn has lived in Sydney her whole life and has loved animals and activism for about as long. She remembers carefully tracking and observing lizards in her backyard before she’d even started school. By age eight, she was scrawling messages onto homemade posters, including, Poachers should go to hell!

“They were these intense posters,” she laughs, adding that her parents helped her reconsider the hell part. “I had them all planned out – a poachers one, one about whales, a whole collection.”

Soon, Llewellyn was watching documentaries on palm oil and on animal agriculture’s impact on climate change. It was a video about the egg industry and its cruel destruction of male chicks that pushed her to give up meat. Her mother, creative director for a theater company, and her father, an English teacher, were supportive – an advantage that Llewellyn knows many young people don’t have.

About her ebook, she says, “There are lots of things for people going vegan, but what I found was there was almost nothing for young people who are still living with parents, who can’t choose everything. There’s peer pressure. There’s family pressure. There’s school pressure. So I kept that in mind.”

She credits her parents with giving her the courage to carve her own path.

“They always raised me to believe that I had a voice and I could fight for issues I believe in. They taught me to challenge things and always read every side of the story.”

As she’s gotten older and as her Instagram following has grown, Llewellyn says she’s learned a lot about effectively reaching people.

“At the beginning, I was unsure how to get a message across about an inherently violent industry, but still do that quite kindly,” she says. “I’m more able to articulate my ideas now. I can articulate why I’m vegan.”

I suddenly realized, wow, look at all of these people who are doing what they love and turning it into a career and activism. I was mind-blown.

Joining her school’s debate team helped, as did continuing to educate herself about factory farming and other industries that exploit animals.

“A lot of it was learning as much as I could, because the more I knew, the better I could talk about it.”

Her interest in animal rights soon led her to other social justice issues, from racism and women’s and LGBT rights to the environmental costs of overconsumption and rampant plastic use.

“What I noticed was there was so much more than veganism that I could use my platform for,” she says. “I see my activism as a holistic attempt to educate young people.”

Like Instagram, she believes art is an essential tool. Besides writing and photography, she loves embroidery – among her recent pieces is one called “Daddy, Where did the Bees Go?” – and filmmaking. She took two years of film courses in high school and now hopes to make it a significant part of her future.

Llewellyn’s camera and an embroidery piece in progress.

“I suddenly realized, wow, look at all of these people who are doing what they love and turning it into a career and activism,” she says. “I was mind-blown.”

I used to eat meat myself, and I was quite oblivious, so I approach it with kindness.

For her year 10 work experience, she interned at Animal Liberation’s Sydney headquarters. When her supervisors discovered she knew her way around iMovie, they asked her to help edit undercover footage of rabbit and egg farming.

She calls the video she worked on “heartbreaking and shocking,” but adds, “It was an honor to have the opportunity.”

Llewellyn now works at The Cruelty Free Shop, Australia’s first vegan supermarket chain, and runs their Instagram. She also plays the piano, studies French, and loves her many potted plants, which she names (Flo, Beatrice, Mrs. Dursely) and frequently features on her social media.

In the near future, she says, she hopes to release an updated ebook, launch workshops on veganism and activism, and work on an animal rights-related documentary.

“I sometimes wake up with images in my brain or opening scenes of films I hope to make one day.”

Graffiti in Newtown, a particularly vegan-friendly area of Sydney.

Is it all too much for a 17-year-old who is also balancing friends, exams, and planning for the rest of her life?

Sometimes it is, Llewellyn acknowledges.

“This stuff gets a little overwhelming, when I’ve got 10 people wanting answers and loads of emails.”

She has scaled back her activism in recent months as she has struggled with mental illness, something she is open about on Instagram.

“I’ve been chatting with so many of you recently about mental illness, plants, veganism etc.,” she posted recently. “It has just reminded me of how wonderful every single one of you are and how proud I am that all of you are alive and hanging in there.”

She says that’s what gets her through harder days: all of the young people she connects with, and the change she knows they are making.

“I have a lot of faith in my generation,” she says. “I have a lot of faith that we’re going to be able to fix all of this.”

Follow Llewellyn on Instagram @tiedyedtofu_
Photos and interview by Jo-Anne McArthur. Text by Corinne Benedict.

 

The Black Mambas

The Black Mambas

by and | Feb 3, 2018 | Contemporary, Photo Interviews

“Their mindset has changed. They’ve seen that
women can do it.”

Yenzekile Mathebula (L) and Leitah Mkhabela (R). All photos by Jo-Anne McArthur/Unbound Project.

Balule Nature Reserve, part of South Africa’s famous Kruger National Park, is home to all of the so-called Big Five: rhinos, elephants, buffalo, leopards, and lions. A fair share of venomous snakes and hyenas roam its 150 square miles, too.

But the most dangerous creatures in this hot, unforgiving landscape are the human predators: poachers, often armed, looking to leave with bushmeat or valuable rhino horn.

Protecting this sanctuary is surely a task best left to men – big ones with guns, right?

Wrong.

For the past five years, a group of a few dozen women, all of them young and from communities immediately surrounding Balule, have been changing minds about what it takes to save wildlife. Now well known as the Black Mambas, their anti-poaching unit patrols unarmed, relying on keen observation, a visible presence and relationships with their neighbours over force.

Felicia Mogakane (L) and Siphewe Sithole (R)

“At first, people around the world thought that anti-poaching is a man’s job,” says Felicia Mogahane, in her late 20s and among the first of the Black Mambas when the nearly all-female unit launched in 2013. “They think women are there for taking care of babies, maybe cooking at home. They never thought that women can protect wildlife and do this dangerous job.

Their mindset has changed because of the Black Mambas. They’ve seen that women can do it.

Now with more than 30 rangers, the Black Mambas have been true pioneers in a profession that is heavily dominated by men, especially in Africa. Most of the unit’s members join shortly after high school, when many of their female peers are prioritizing marriage, home life or jobs seen as more acceptable for women.

Instead, Mambas spend months in intense field training, learning surveillance practices, compliance techniques and how to survive alone in the bush. Once in the unit, they spend three weeks away from home at a time, conducting long patrols, including at night, both by jeep and on foot. Often far from any backup, they dismantle poachers’ camps and snares, come to the aid of animals who’ve been harmed, and search for signs of intrusion, such as breaks in fencing, human tracks and even out-of-place rocks.

Felicia Mogahane
NoCry Mzimba
Felicia Mogahane
NoCry Mzimba

In the unit’s early years, members say, many recruits’ families and neighbours were unsupportive. But that has changed as the Mambas, named after the deadly snake, have become internationally known and celebrated. They’ve been featured by countless newspapers, websites and television shows.

“I don’t want to lie,” Mogahane says. “At first my family was so negative about this idea. They said, ‘Don’t go. What about us?’”

Today, relatives take immense pride in her work, she says. And when she is home between stints in the bush, she is bombarded with questions from women who want to follow in her footsteps.

“They always ask me, ‘When are they going to hire more Mambas?’”

What has garnered so much attention isn’t just that the Mambas are among South Africa’s first black women to work as rangers. It’s that what they’re doing is working. Poaching in and around Balule has decreased dramatically since the unit began, including among rhinos, the main species the Mambas were created to protect. In 2015, their success earned them the prestigious United Nations’ Champions of the Earth award.

“We are the best,” Leitah Mkhabela, a Black Mamba in her early 20s, says matter-of-factly.

Mogahane adds, “It’s been insane. They love what we are doing.”

Field work, looking for snares
Mambas in the field
Colin Mathebula and Felicia Mogahane
Mambas in the field

In the years before the Mambas, unit administrator Amy Clark says, two major poaching crises nearly wiped out Kruger’s rhino population, now estimated to be around 9,000. (South Africa is home to about 20,000 rhinos, far more than any other country.)

“Bringing the same tools out of the toolbox wasn’t going to work,” Clark says. “It had already failed twice.”

Convinced that bullets would never be the way, Craig Spencer, who founded the Black Mambas, decided a unit of women could be part of the answer, along with an approach based on deterrence and modeled after the British police: “bobbies on the beat” who are unarmed but well trained, highly regarded and ever-present.

Colin Mathebula and Felicia Mogahane

“The Mambas are the eyes and ears of the reserve,” Mogahane says. “We do visual policing. We look more carefully because we’re not carrying guns. When we’re patrolling in the bush and along the fence, we don’t have time to play.”

We are the best.

Also key is that Black Mambas come from the same communities as the poachers and would-be poachers they are working to stop. Part of their work involves teaching locals that live rhinos are more valuable to South Africans than dead ones. Besides setting an example and promoting their conservation ethos through their patrol work, the Mambas give environmental education lessons in local schools through a program called Bush Babies. They are certain that children of poachers are among those they reach.

Mamba NoCry Mzimba explains her unit’s success a slightly different way: “The poachers, they are afraid of the Mambas. They’re not sure what we’re capable of. That’s our secret.”

She adds, “When we started this, most people didn’t believe in us. But they realized they made a mistake.”

Young rhinos orphaned by poaching
Rhino education program
Rhino education program

The Mambas acknowledge that their job involves danger and hardship. Many are mothers who rely on family and neighbours to help rear their children while they’re away, and while no Mambas have been killed for their work, they know that poachers have murdered many rangers at other African reserves.

“I sometimes think that they will come to our reserve and do the same thing,” Mogahane, who has two children, confesses. Of her kids, she says, “You wish you could be there to look after them. Sometimes it’s so stressful.”

But what they are protecting is worth it, and so are the now-shattered barriers they’ve broken through, she and other Mambas say.

The poachers, they are afraid of the Mambas. They’re not sure what we’re capable of. That’s our secret.

“I’ve committed myself to saving rhinos and wildlife,” Mogahane says. “I’m used to staying in the bush and doing my job and my beat. As long as I go home sometimes to see my family, it’s ok for me. The animals need my love. As a woman, I feel proud for myself. When I wake up in the morning, I’m like, ‘Wow, it’s me doing this.’ We are sending a message to young women that they must stand up and do things for themselves.”

Mzimba, who says she has loved animals and nature all her life, feels much the same.

“It’s ok,” she says of the job’s sacrifices, “because I’m trying to save animals. Now it is our time. It is our time as ladies to protect nature and make sure everything is better than before.”

She says she has two messages for her community – one for those who support conservation, and another for those working against it.

Siphewe Sithole
Siphewe Sithole
Siphewe Sithole with local students
Felicia Mogahane with local students

“To people who love nature, let’s save our wildlife animals. Let’s protect them for future generations’ sake. Because we love it, and I’m 100 percent sure that future generations will also love nature. So let’s do this for them.”

Mzimba pauses a moment, and then continues. “To poachers, you heartbreakers, you heartless people, stop poaching the rhinos. Because sooner or later, you will be poached.”

About the animals they are saving, another Mamba says, “They are just like us. They want love.”

Now it is our time. It is our time as ladies to protect nature and make sure everything is better than before.

She tells the story of one rhino in particular, a male whose mate was shot and killed by poachers. Ever since, he has avoided the place where the shooting happened.

“I can feel that he’s feeling pain. I can say they are just like humans,” she says.

“When they hear our voices, they know it’s us, and we can see they are happy.”

Learn more and support The Black Mambas.
Text by Corinne Benedict, photos by Jo-Anne McArthur.

Katrīna Krīgere

Katrīna Krīgere

by and | Jan 9, 2018 | Contemporary, Photo Interviews

“Let’s change the world together”

Katrīna Krīgere. All photos by Jo-Anne McArthur/Unbound Project.

Katrīna Krīgere was hitchhiking through Europe in her 20s when fellow travellers introduced her to veganism. The idea immediately made sense to her. As a child, she’d felt a special kinship with animals, always finding ways to help and be around them.

Upon returning home to her native Latvia, she became a vegetarian, but struggled to go vegan.

“I somehow felt very lonely,” Krīgere recalls, “and at this time in Latvia, being vegetarian was already seen as crazy. I didn’t see any company for me.”

Eventually, she made the jump to veganism, and became more and more involved in animal rights. She was working as a video journalist when she took another huge leap.

“They pushed me to do a lot of commercials, for example, hunting magazines and agriculture magazines. I had to voice them myself and tell these terrible lies.”

Krīgere could hardly bear it. “It really broke my mind,” she says. “I started to get ill very often.”

So with only a little savings to rely on, Krīgere quit to dedicate herself full-time to a two-year-old animal rights organization she’d been running on the side with her partner, Aivars Andersons.

Today, she smiles as she says: “I’m where I want to be.”

Katrīna Krīgere
Katrīna Krīgere

Krīgere’s organization, Dzīvnieku brīvība, or “Animal Freedom,” is one of the only animal rights organizations in Latvia, a tiny post-Soviet country with a population of just two million people. With a focus on industrial animal agriculture, fur farming, and the use of animals in entertainment, Dzīvnieku brīvība has little staff or money. The group has started from scratch in nearly all of its endeavors.

“They’re literally writing the book on this type of work as they go,” Alexandria Beck, with the United States-based Humane League, said in a recent video tribute to Dzīvnieku brīvība.

I’m where I want to be.

Despite its challenges, the organization has made a significant mark. It conducts bold investigations, garners significant Latvian media attention, and has won major policy battles. In June, Latvia’s parliament formally banned the use of wild animals in circuses after a long Dzīvnieku brīvība campaign. In a huge victory for the group in December 2017, one of the largest grocery retailers in the region agreed to go cage-free by 2025 after Dzīvnieku brīvība teamed up with organizations in Lithuania and Estonia to pressure the company to improve conditions for egg hens — a victory that will likely lead to more cage-free commitments. And Krīgere and Andersons recently won the Lisa Shapiro Award, which celebrates unsung heroes in the global animal advocacy movement.

Katrīna Krīgere

Krīgere is brave, humble, and endlessly hardworking. For her, Dzīvnieku brīvība is the realization of a life’s purpose she says she’s long felt. She was in the first or second grade when she undertook a one-girl campaign to help a sick, hungry chained dog who she passed each day on her long walk to school in Salaspils, Latvia.

“I made this poster and I put it on the fence, and of course they removed it,” Krīgere remembers. “But I just continued making these posters and putting them on the fence. I don’t know where I got this idea, but I thought, I have to help this dog.”

Before Dzīvnieku brīvība, Andersons says, there were of course vegans and activists in Latvia, but it wasn’t until he and Krīgere and a handful of friends started the organization that he felt like there was any kind of a local movement. They’d become inspired after attending an animal rights gathering in neighboring Estonia and held Dzīvnieku brīvība’s first meeting in a cafe in 2012.

Katrīna Krīgere
Katrīna Krīgere

The organization began its efforts with vegan outreach, and then investigations and targeted campaigns, including circus protests. When a trainer who’d been caught on video badly abusing elephants came to Latvia, Dzīvnieku brīvība couldn’t miss the chance to protest him.

It’s a small place, but you can really change things here.

“This first protest was really quite huge for our country, and then attendees said, ‘What next?’” Krīgere recalls. So they kept going, demonstrating at each of the circus’ more than two dozen shows.

“It made us visible and helped people to know us, and we got a lot of new supporters,” she says. It was enough to eventually win the national ban.

“It’s a small place,” Krīgere says of Latvia. “But you can really change things here.”

Andersons says it is Krīgere who keeps Dzīvnieku brīvība running.

“She’s very persistent and focused,” he says. “I sometimes think of strategies, but I don’t follow things through to the detail. She takes care of things and brings a lot of administrative stuff to the organization, and friendliness, too. She is definitely the friendly face of the organization.”

Katrīna Krīgere
Katrīna Krīgere

Krīgere says she has gained as much as she has given.

“It’s a great thing,” she says of activism. “It’s one the best things that’s happened in my life. It’s not only that I’m doing something good for animals and for society — because society suffers from being cruel to animals. But it’s also very good for self-development. I learn so much in what I do.”

Let’s change the world together.

She says she’s loved meeting so many brave women through activism; she estimates women make up about 80 percent of the movement here.

“I think we (men and women) are naturally the same,” she says. “But it’s social programming that we get since we’re born, and it’s very powerful. Here, women are very strong. It’s from Soviet times that mostly the leader of the family is female, actually. So it somehow seems very obvious that females are the ones who are trying to make some change and move males to do something. That’s how it works here. I’m not saying 100 percent, but I see it very often, all around.”

Her hope for the future? That more people, regardless of who they are, will join in.

“Let’s change the world together,” Krīgere says. “There are so many problems. This world is so broken. I wish people would become more aware of how each of us is involved in this broken condition, and how each of us has some power to change it.”

Learn more and support Dzīvnieku brīvība.
Text by Corinne Benedict, photos by Jo-Anne McArthur.

The Women of Animals Australia

The Women of Animals Australia

by and | Dec 19, 2017 | Contemporary, Photo Interviews

“Every day I feel that I am in the best possible position to make the biggest impact for animals.”

L-R: Lisa Chalk, Shatha Hamade, Karen Nilsen, Lyn White, and Glenys Oogjes. All photos by Jo-Anne McArthur/Unbound Project.

While it is a progressive country in many senses, Australia has had only one female Prime Minister since federation in 1901, and 75 percent of board positions on Australian listed companies are held by men. Animal groups have not been immune to this glass ceiling. While much of the daily toil of animal protection is carried out by women in Australia, senior leadership roles within the animal movement – as in many professional industries – are often held by men.

Not so at Animals Australia. One of the major voices for animals in that country, the group has been female-driven since its inception in 1980. Founded to provide a unified voice for animal protection groups that had begun springing up across Australia, Glenys Oogjes, now CEO, became Animals Australia’s first employee in 1983. Initially working part-time, Oogjes was drawn to the group because she believed “political campaigns were the key to reform for animals.”

Glenys Oogjes
Glenys Oogjes

One of Animals Australia’s co-founders describes Oogjes’ appointment as the best thing he has done for the animal movement – no light praise considering that co-founder is Professor Peter Singer, Australian philosopher and author of the so-called ‘bible’ of the animal protection movement, Animal Liberation.

Animals Australia has worked hard to represent and unify animal protection groups in the country’s growing movement. In her early years on staff, Oogjes performed the often-thankless task of sitting on government committees and working with policymakers to try and bring about change for animals from inside government. That work was predominantly behind the scenes and throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Animals Australia remained a little-known organization.

All that changed when Lyn White joined the team in 2003.

Lyn White

A police officer for 20 years, White’s life took a dramatic turn when she learned that bears are farmed for their bile in parts of Asia. That realisation led her to volunteer and then work with Animals Asia and Jill Robinson, whom White describes as an inspiration and her greatest mentor. But White would not remain in Asia forever. As her understanding of animal suffering expanded, she was drawn back to Australia to begin addressing the plight of animals at home. It was White’s skills as an investigator that would lead Animals Australia in a new direction, allowing them to gather the evidence that would be used in the organization’s now-trademark media exposés.

In 2004, Karen Nilsen joined the team as a volunteer. While the organization had an online presence, it was not yet the social media powerhouse it would become, and Nilsen’s graphic design training and experience with tech start-ups gave her the tools to make a big difference with the organization’s online reach. By 2007 she was a full-time member of staff and is now Director of Communications and Creative Services. Nilsen sees her mission as taking what Animals Australia does every day and extending it across the globe via the web. She recalls that Animals Australia “was conducting strategic, critically-needed, ground-breaking investigation work (led by White), but was struggling to scale the impact of that work for animals online. For me, that was the easy part.”

Karen Nilsen
Karen Nilsen

By the early 2000s, the Animals Australia team already had established campaigns on factory farming, and were now setting their sights on Australia’s live animal export trade. Within months of coming on board, White was in the Middle East conducting the first of dozens of investigations into the treatment of animals exported for slaughter.

In 2011, Animals Australia, working in conjunction with RSPCA Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and journalist Sarah Ferguson, revealed the reality of what happens to cows who are live exported from Australia to Indonesia. The award-winning piece aired on the ABC’s flagship current affairs program Four Corners. It shocked the nation and resulted in a temporary ban on live animal exports to Indonesia, as well as finally making Animals Australia a household name.

When I met the team at Animals Australia I felt like I’d arrived home.

After serving as the RSPCA Australia Communications Manager throughout the live animal export campaign, Lisa Chalk joined the Animals Australia team in 2012. Her commitment and talent did not go unnoticed, and when Chalk was invited to join Animals Australia she knew she couldn’t say no. Chalk says that working on the live export campaign was “an equal mix of exhilarating and liberating. When I met the team at Animals Australia I felt like I’d arrived home.”

Lisa Chalk

After bringing Chalk on board, Oogjes and White had not quite finished handpicking their dream team: next on the radar was Shatha Hamade. Having left the corporate world to train as a lawyer in order to stand up for animals, Hamade was already a well-known advocate after being named Australia’s Young Lawyer of the Year in 2012. She left a full-time role with RSPCA South Australia to join the Animals Australia team and hasn’t looked back since. “Every day I feel that I am in the best possible position to make the biggest impact for animals… Animals Australia gets results and operates without fear or favour. The talent and commitment of the team is world class.”

Shatha Hamade
Shatha Hamade

“There is a unity of purpose that shines through every day and we all bring different skills and knowledge to the table. In knowing that this is a difficult field, that is relentless in its demands of you, it is also an incredibly supportive and caring environment,” says White of the team. “It is a rare workplace where colleagues are also dear friends.”

In the last few years, the Animals Australia team has had a profound impact on the animal protection landscape in Australia and around the world.

One of their recent flagship campaigns has exposed the systematic and endemic cruelty that is a routine part of Australia’s greyhound racing industry. They uncovered tourists unwittingly eating dog meat in Bali. They have continually brought to light the hidden suffering of animals on factory farms and in slaughterhouses on Australian soil, and they have demonstrated time and time again the suffering of animals in the live export trade.

The work of the Animals Australia team has not gone unnoticed: in 2014, White was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia. In 2015, Animals Australia became the most ‘liked’ Australian charity on social media. They now have more than 30 employees, including team members in Europe, South America, and Indonesia.

It is a rare workplace where colleagues are also dear friends.

L-R: Shatha Hamade, Lisa Chalk, and Glenys Oogjes.
L-R: Lisa Chalk, Shatha Hamade, Karen Nilsen, Lyn White, and Glenys Oogjes.
L-R: Lisa Chalk, Shatha Hamade, Karen Nilsen, Lyn White, and Glenys Oogjes.

When asked what the most rewarding aspect of working for the organization is, each woman emphasized the privileged role they occupy and the exhilaration they feel to be working with so many other talented animal advocates, both within their own team and beyond.

We’re seeing more progress than ever before, and I’m convinced that trend will continue as smart people in smart organizations continue to work together on behalf of animals.

Oogjes takes pride in the community she has helped build, which “expands its circle of compassion each day.” For White and Hamade, it is the supporters that drives them forward. Nilsen feels keenly the privilege of seeing the animal protection movement flourish, and knowing that she has played a small part in that process. Chalk sums it up perhaps best: “There are campaign wins that invigorate us, like convincing McDonald’s to stop using cage eggs, but I think what’s most fulfilling is the journey itself, and of course the ultimate reward will be the day when there is no need for an organization like ours.”

The team knows that the day they will no longer be needed won’t come anytime soon, and they are in this fight for the long haul. Asked what they would like to achieve in the future, the list was as ambitious as you might expect. White spoke of working towards a large-scale shift in consciousness that “will make societies willing to re-examine what our relationship with our fellow species is meant to be.”

Lyn White
Lyn White

Nilsen is focused on finding ways to help others do the most good they can and building capacity and coordination within the movement. “We’re seeing more progress than ever before, and I’m convinced that trend will continue as smart people in smart organizations continue to work together on behalf of animals.”

What’s most fulfilling is the journey itself, and of course the ultimate reward will be the day when there is no need for an organization like ours.

Hamade has her sights set on working globally to end live animal exports. Chalk is also mindful of problems closer to home, nominating a ban on the use of the battery cage in Australia as one of her priorities. And what are the hopes of Animals Australia’s first staff member, Oogjes? That “community awareness and understanding of animal sentience… will lead to significant changes in the use and treatment of animals that are currently being hunted, displaced, culled,” and exploited in so many other industries. Essentially, Oogjes says that she hopes that we will come to see animals not as bodies to be consumed, but as fellow beings.

Learn more about Animals Australia and support their work.
Text by Siobhan O’Sullivan. Photos by Jo-Anne McArthur.

The 2017 Unbound Project Grant Recipients

The 2017 Unbound Project Grant Recipients

by | Dec 9, 2017 | Contemporary, Photo Interviews

All photos by Jo-Anne McArthur/Unbound Project except where indicated.

In 2017, the Unbound Project invited some of our featured women to apply for our first-ever round of grants to support projects aimed at helping farmed animals around the world. We awarded grants to women doing remarkable work to make real change for animals. We gave away a total of $100,000, with 10 grants of $10,000 each going towards funding innovative projects in eight countries.

Read the stories of the projects we’re funding and the women leading them below.

Note that any future Unbound Project Grants will also be awarded to applicants who are invited to submit funding proposals. We are not accepting unsolicited applications at this time. 

2017 Unbound Project Grant Recipients

Pam Ahern

Pam Ahern – Australia

Ahern is the founder of Edgar’s Mission, a sanctuary for rescued farm animals and one of Australia’s most important voices in farm animal protection. The sanctuary is home to hundreds of animals and also runs animal protection and vegan advocacy campaigns and events on-site and around the country. Ahern’s 2017 Unbound Project Grant will go towards funding a cross-country speaking tour in Australia where she will share the story of starting a sanctuary farm sanctuary and dedicating her life to animal

Check back in 2018 for Ahern’s full Unbound profile.

 

Piia Anttonen – Finland

Piia Anttonen

Piia Anttonen

Anttonen runs Tuulispää Animal Sanctuary in Finland, a sanctuary she founded in 2012 after pledging to always help the animals most in need, the elderly, the sick, the abused, and the neglected. Anttonen’s 2017 Unbound Project Grant will go towards stepping up her sanctuary’s vegan advocacy with the creation of an on-site education centre to host plant-based cooking classes, film screenings, speakers, school visits, and community events.

Read Anttonen’s full Unbound profile here.

 

Allison Argo

Allison Argo – USA

Argo became a filmmaker almost by accident as she sought a way to speak for those who could not tell their own stories. “I look for those who are struggling – for survival or freedom or simply for dignity and respect,” she says. Argo’s latest film, documentary The Last Pig tells the story of a pig farmer who, after a change of heart, sent his remaining animals to sanctuaries and moved to plant-based farming. Argo’s 2017 Unbound Project Grant will be used to promote the film.

Read Argo’s full Unbound profile here.

 

Karyn Boswell – Canada

Karyn Boswell

Boswell founded and runs Penny Lane Farm Sanctuary in Canada. Almost an accidental activist, she started the sanctuary after moving to a rural area and being shocked by the treatment of horses sold (generally for horsemeat) at auctions. Today Penny Lane is an important voice for horses and other farmed animals in Canada. Boswell’s 2017 Unbound Project Grant will go towards the construction of a visitor barn and educational space at the sanctuary’s new location, allowing visitors and school children to learn about the sanctuary’s animal residents and the industries that abuse countless animals just like them each year.

Read Boswell’s full Unbound profile here.

Juliana Casteñeda-Turner. Photo by Julie O’Neill.

Juliana Casteñeda-Turner – Colombia

Casteñeda-Turner is the founding director of Juliana’s Animal Sanctuary, which she officially opened in 2008. The sanctuary is now home to more than 80 rescued animals—most of them farm animals—and also runs education and vegan outreach programs. Casteñeda-Turner’s 2017 Unbound Project grant will go towards expanding the sanctuary’s educational outreach and providing free vegan resources to schools in Colombia.

Read Casteñeda-Turner’s full Unbound profile here.

 

Josie Du Toit – South Africa

Josie Du Toit

Du Toit is Co-Director of the Vervet Monkey Foundation in South Africa. Born and raised in England, Du Toit’s early love for animals led her to volunteer and work full time at the African sanctuary she’s now called home for more than ten years. Under Du Toit’s leadership, the vervet sanctuary has also developed a vegan outreach program, and the 2017 Unbound Project Grant will be used to build an on-site kitchen to host vegan cooking classes for volunteers, community members, and chefs from local schools.

Read Du Toit’s full Unbound profile here.

 

Dobrosława Gogłoza

Dobrosława Gogłoza – Poland

Gogłoza is the co-founder of Otwarte Klatki (branded as Open Cages internationally), the Polish organization driving change for animals in Eastern Europe. Gogłoza’s group focuses its energy on campaigns and projects that will have the maximum impact for animals. Her 2017 Unbound Project Grant will go towards a high-impact plant-based advocacy campaign in Estonia.

Read Gogłoza’s full Unbound profile here.

Camille Labchuk – Canada

Camille Labchuk

Labchuk is Executive Director of Animal Justice, Canada’s only legal advocacy organization for animals. A lifelong activist, Labchuk made the decision to become a lawyer in order to fight for greater legal and political protections for animals. Since its foundation, Animal Justice has quickly become one of the leading national voices for animals in Canada. Labchuk and Animal Justice will use the 2017 Unbound Project Grant to increase their federal political outreach and bring media attention to the need for federal protections for farm animals.

Read Labchuk’s full Unbound profile here.

 

Smaragda Louw with members of the Ban Animal Trading team

Smaragda Louw – South Africa

Louw co-founded Ban Animal Trading (BAT) in 2013 and the group has quickly made a name for itself in animal protection in South Africa. Louw’s group has a broad focus and a relentless drive to keep conducting new investigations, launching new campaigns, and generally keep animal issues in the public eye. Louw and BAT will use their 2017 Unbound Project Grant to fund investigative work on farms through 2018.

Read Louw’s full Unbound profile here.

 

Hazel Zhang – China

Hazel Zhang. Photo by Kelly Guerin.

When Zhang watched a documentary about the brutal treatment of farm animals, she knew she had to take action. She started VegPlanet, a website that shares news and resources about living a vegan lifestyle –– one of the first of its kind in China. Today, Zhang’s site has hundreds of thousands of followers and a growing team of full-time staff.  She and her team will use the 2017 Unbound Project Grant to host a series of simultaneous vegan events, promoting them online and in the media to increase public awareness of the benefits of plant-based diets.

Watch Hazel’s Unbound video profile here.

 

Text by Sayara Thurston. All featured photos by Jo-Anne McArthur/Unbound Project except where indicated.