Pei-Feng Su

Pei-Feng Su

by and | May 30, 2018 | Contemporary, Photo Interviews

“When you untie the knots, you have to do it bit by bit.”

Pei-Feng Su. All photographs by Jo-Anne McArthur (except where indicated).

P ei-Feng Su gets a call from a donor who presents her with an opportunity: the donor wants to fund her organization to rescue a truck full of dogs bound for slaughter. She says no.

“It’s a choice. We live with the choice.”

Su is the Executive Director and co-founder of ACT Asia, an organization dedicated to humane education in Asia. Since it was founded, the organization has taught more than 65,000 students and trained over 1000 teachers. They’re a small group with limited funding, but they punch above their weight, in part because of their laser focus. Donors want to fund rescuing dogs from meat trucks, and it’s gratifying work in the short term, but finding funding for what comes next – sheltering and caring for the animals – would quickly take up all of ACT Asia’s time and resources.

Because her group’s focus is in education, people say to her, “Oh you just chose the easy job. You don’t have the courage to fight.” She used to agree with them.

Humane education is groundbreaking. It should be taught like English, like math.

But if anything, focusing on education is the bravest choice that Su has ever made. Turning away from relieving the suffering of animals right in front of her for the sake of preventing the suffering of a greater number of animals in the future takes a huge amount of courage.

“We’re just firefighting,” she says of many of the campaigns that exist today. She acknowledges the importance of the animal movement’s current campaigns – for stronger legislation, corporate shifts, and moving people to plant-based diets – but, she argues, we need a holistic approach, and educating young people has been woefully neglected by the animal movement.

“Humane education is groundbreaking,” Su says. “It should be taught like English, like math.”

Su wasn’t drawn into the animal movement by any particular feeling of love towards other species, but because she recognized it as a social justice issue like any other. Before working on behalf of animals, she was an advocate for victims of domestic violence and women seeking access to abortion.

In 1992, when Su first started fighting for animals, she would go to meetings in parliament and speak to the media. But, with no PhD, no science degree, and no background in the issues, she quickly felt intimidated, especially as a woman.

In compassionate work, there are always lots of women, but even when I was working in the west, the men earned more.

So, she left the country to learn practical skills, interning with several animal rights organizations in the US.

“I wanted to learn how they survived,” Su says of women in the movement. “And I was empowered.

“In compassionate work, there are always lots of women,” but they don’t always receive respect, she goes on. “Even when I was working in the west, the men earned more.” Su almost took an organization to court because she knew that a man hired after her, and with the same experience, was being paid more.

On gender equality, she says looking back on her 25 years of experience, “It’s better, but it’s not there yet.”

When you untie the knots, you have to do it bit by bit.

Ten years ago, Su conceived the idea for an education-focused organization and, unknowingly, became pregnant at the same time. “I always say I have two kids,” she laughs. Twins, born and raised together.

Su credits her daughter with making her the activist she is today. “I think if I didn’t have my daughter I would have already left the movement. I really think she saved me.”

Photo courtesy of ACT Asia.
Photo courtesy of ACT Asia.
Photo courtesy of ACT Asia.
Photo courtesy of ACT Asia.
Photo courtesy of ACT Asia.
Participants in the #CaringForLife Education program. Image courtesy of ActAsia.

She works hard to prove that she can be a good mother and a good activist and, with the support of her husband, she’s taken motherhood in stride. “I sent my last email to everyone when I was on the way to the hospital.”

Her daughter has taught her the importance of a normal, balanced life, Su says. “When I became an activist, for the first five years, I had no friends, because I could not bear to go out with them. I think everybody goes through it.”

And now, “I feel like I’m a balanced person,” she says. “My daughter’s life taught me it’s important to have friends. It’s important to have normal friends!” She bursts into laughter at this, but there’s truth in her words.

Raising a child has also reinforced her conviction in what she does. “She’s my best teacher,” Su says of her daughter, Risa. “She really helped me to understand and to see the world as kids do. That’s why I’m so passionate about education,” she says, reflecting on the power of teaching a young child. “They are what you make them.”

Su is playing the long game. “When you untie the knots, you have to do it bit by bit.” When she first started, Su thought ACT Asia might end up teaching humane education in a few schools. Today, they have six years’ worth of curriculum being taught in 130 schools, with more being rolled out all the time.

“We’re not going to break that circle if they grow up seeing abuse. We have more kids in schools now saying, ‘I don’t want to see the circus, mom, because I think that’s wrong.’”

ACT Asia’s work has made them one of the most impactful groups in Asia and a global force in humane education, with several offices now open around the world. Su hasn’t chosen an easy route, but she’s already had a lasting impact for animals.

Learn more and support ACT Asia.
Photos by Jo-Anne McArthur. Interview and text by Sayara Thurston.

Lynn Simpson

Lynn Simpson

by and | May 21, 2018 | Contemporary, Photo Interviews

“It’s simply a cruel, shameful chapter of our country that belongs in the dark ages.” 

 

All images of Lynn Simpson were taken by Jo-Anne McArthur at the University of Sydney’s veterinary school.

D r. Lynn Simpson is tough. For ten years she worked in a challenging, almost lawless, male-dominated industry, as a senior veterinarian aboard Australian live export ships.

Each ship carries up to 20,000 cows or 100,000 sheep for weeks at a time over vast seas, only to be slaughtered once they reach their destinations.

It is an industry that has frequently been in the media spotlight for shocking animal cruelty – in recent weeks to the point of public cries for the entire industry to be ended for good. Simpson is one of very few women to have seen the harsh realities of this trade first hand.

Simpson decided to become a veterinarian at the age of six, when she first discovered that being an animal doctor was a profession. In her third year of vet school she got a job on the wharf in Fremantle loading livestock onto ships. Simpson remembers seeing dead and injured animals being dragged off the trucks that had come from the farms. It was here that she first realised something was wrong, that these animals were suffering.

It was clear to all that what we were involved with was wrong, however, at least we were bearing witness and taking complaints back to shore to push for reform.

Within three weeks of graduating, she took her first live export voyage on a ship bound for Saudi Arabia. Over the next ten years she would work on 57 voyages. It was an exciting career full of adventure, which saw her sailing through environmental disasters, war zones, and pirated waters.

Because of the sheer number of animals she looked after, and the severity of their suffering, her work seemed larger than life. It was also chaotic, filthy, and brutal. On board, the overcrowded animals suffered heat stress, suffocation, starvation, and thirst, so tightly packed they were often unable to easily reach water as they were shipped into the heart of Middle Eastern summer. Lying down meant they were likely to be trampled by the other desperate animals beside them. Mother cows and sheep suffered miscarriages or stillbirths; still more had their babies crushed to death under the sea of hooves. Simpson describes the animals on one voyage as actually having melted, “cooking from the inside.” She spent her days seeing to their injuries, doing what she could to relieve their suffering, and euthanizing those she could not help.

What kept her going on those harsh journeys? “Black humour,” she says, “and wine.” Knowing she was providing a meaningful service to the animals by trying to reduce their suffering also gave her a sense of purpose. “It was clear to all that what we were involved with was wrong, however, at least we were bearing witness and taking complaints back to shore to push for reform.”

Over the years Simpson made countless reports to the Government detailing the bloody reality of life aboard the ships, but her concerns for the welfare of the animals went ignored. Only the number of deaths was recorded.

Like many ‘whistle-blowers’ I was simply doing my job, reporting to authorities and working to improve welfare.

Then, Simpson was offered the opportunity to make a lasting difference to the welfare of animals in the live export industry. In 2012 she was offered a job as a technical advisor with the Department of Agriculture, the live-export industry regulator, while it carried out a review of the Australian Standards for Exporting Livestock.

The report she submitted exposed the cruelty and suffering at the heart of the live export trade. Her evidence, including graphic photographs, was an unprecedented body of work documenting the horrors routinely occurring on board. Simpson felt she was making a powerful case for reform of the industry – she was finally being heard.

When the evidence was accidentally leaked to the public in 2013, it was explosive, blowing apart claims by the industry that animal welfare was a top priority. It also ended Simpson’s career. She was gradually dismissed from her position under pressure from live exporters, revealing undue influence of industry within government. She was ostracized by her colleagues and blacklisted by the industry. “It was a very lonely and frustrating time,” she says. “Like many ‘whistle-blowers’ I was simply doing my job, reporting to authorities and working to improve welfare.”

Since her dismissal, Simpson has been unable to work in the industry to which she gave ten years of her life. But there was a silver lining: “I could then strategize to speak up loudly and raise awareness, knowing I had nothing to lose.”

Simpson’s vast experience within the industry has given her advocacy a credibility that other whistle-blowers don’t have. Where many have been discredited as ill-informed, Simpson has years’ worth of hard evidence behind her. Her voice holds weight.

Simpson has left a powerful legacy in the fight to end live export, both from within the industry and from the outside. In the years since her explosive dismissal, her story has paved the way for more whistleblowers to come forward, keeping the issue in the public eye.

“It’s simply a cruel, shameful chapter of our country that belongs in the dark ages.” she says with absolute conviction.

To follow the story about live transport in Australia, visit Animals Australia.
Photos by Jo-Anne McArthur. Interview and text by Anna Mackiewicz.

 

The Women of C.A.R.E.

The Women of C.A.R.E.

by and | May 15, 2018 | Contemporary, Photo Interviews

“If I only lived for that, then I had a good life.”

Samantha Dewhirst (L) photo by Jo-Anne McArthur. Rita Miljo (R) photo provided by C.A.R.E.

It was a hot July night in 2012. Like most evenings, Samantha Dewhirst and Stephen Munro were gathered for a cobbled-together, family-style dinner with other volunteer staff at the Centre for Animal Rehabilitation and Education, or C.A.R.E., deep in the South African bush.

With the sounds of wildlife echoing in the distance, they were chatting and laughing, sharing stories from the day – good medicine for a group of 20-somethings earning no pay for one of the most demanding and thankless jobs in animal protection: rehabilitating chacma baboons, a “vermin” species so despised by locals that for a long time, shooting them on sight was considered a civic duty.

And then one of their party stepped out onto the balcony and spotted it – a fire in the distance. The building that was burning housed C.A.R.E.’s clinic and orphan sleeping quarters as well as the second-floor apartment of the centre’s legendary founder, Rita Miljo, who was 81. Dewhirst, Munro and the others rushed to the fire. They managed to save more than 30 baboons, but three perished, along with Miljo, the only leader C.A.R.E. had ever known.

The main purpose in my life is to show people that baboons can be beautiful. And if I only lived for that, then I had a good life.

With hundreds of baboons in residence, few paid staff and little money, the centre was facing a sea of complex challenges, from permit issues to aging facilities to adversarial neighbours. Miljo’s death could easily have meant the end of C.A.R.E. But six years on, the centre is thriving, thanks to a group of young people, including Dewhirst, who stepped up when South Africa’s baboons needed them most.

“It was really scary,” Dewhirst, now 31, says of the time immediately after Miljo’s death. “I was in survival mode. All we could think about was making sure C.A.R.E. would survive.”

Of the years since, Dewhirst says, “It was very much, ‘If you want it to move forward, you have to push it, push it, push it.’

“And that’s what we’ve been doing.”

…

Born in 1931, Miljo grew up in Germany and hoped to become a veterinarian after the war. It didn’t work out, but she worked for a time at the Hagenback Zoo in Hamburg. In a 1953, she moved to Africa with a mining engineer whom she married. She fell in love with the bush and South Africa’s wildlife, buying a small farm at the edge of Kruger National Park that served as her family’s weekend retreat and would eventually become C.A.R.E.

She learned to fly and became a proficient pilot. It was an interest she shared with her husband until it took his life in 1972, when the small plane he was flying crashed. With him was their 17-year-old daughter, who was also killed. In a way, the loss emboldened Miljo; what did she have to fear when she’d already experienced the worst thing that could possibly happen?

Miljo met her first baboon around 1980 – an orphaned female she came across while traveling in Namibia. She smuggled her across the South African border and named her Bobby, living with her in busy Johannesburg before the pair moved permanently a few years later to Miljo’s bush retreat, about 400 kilometers northeast. Soon Miljo began taking in more animals, including other chacma baboons, mostly babies who’d been orphaned when their mothers were shot or poisoned. In 1989, she founded C.A.R.E.

At the time, no one rehabilitated baboons for return to the wild, where the species lives in large troops with set social orders that individuals, especially adult females, cannot simply be inserted into. Miljo had no scientific training, but at her retreat in Limpopo, along the banks of the Olifants River, she paid close attention to a troop of wild baboons that she affectionately named the Long Tits. While Bobby showed Miljo how intelligent and loving individual baboons could be, it was the Long Tits who taught her the intricacies of their groups – their ranking system, dynamics, and various calls for danger, for mating, and for soothing their young.

With new orphans arriving at C.A.R.E. all the time, “You didn’t need to be a genius to say, ‘Let’s make our own troops,’” Miljo explained in one of many interviews she gave about her work.

Learning as she went, Miljo developed her rehabilitation model: Baby baboons were hand-raised by human surrogate mothers who were with them 24 hours a day, sleeping with them, changing their diapers and bottle-feeding them. (In order to thrive, orphaned baboons need the same kind of touch and comfort as human children.) Orphans were introduced to others, and eventually, entirely new troops were created that lived together and bonded for years at the centre before being released as groups at carefully chosen locations. A release – a gradual process in which a human stuck around to assist and then test and observe the group before finally leaving – took months.

People said it couldn’t be done, that it was madness to do it, and that she was mad to do it. And yet she succeeded.

It was hard work made even harder by South African laws and prejudice against Miljo’s beloved baboons. She had to be tough. When hunters trespassed onto C.A.R.E.’s land to shoot baboons, Miljo shot back, literally. Brash and direct, she was known for speaking her mind and was honest about preferring baboons to people; with baboons, she would say, you always knew where you stood.

To neighbours and South African officials who didn’t understand her, Miljo was regarded as an irritant, even as crazy. But to many others, she was a pioneer, revered for her bravery, determination and empathy.

“People said it couldn’t be done, that it was madness to do it, and that she was mad to do it. And yet she succeeded,” Will Travers, of the Born Free Foundation, said in a documentary about Miljo, Lady Baboon.

In an interview for the same film, Jane Goodall said, “We have all these different species in the world. Thank goodness there are people like Rita who are working for those that other people don’t like.”

Miljo eventually grew the 32-acre C.A.R.E. into the world’s largest baboon centre, with volunteers from around the globe and more than a dozen troop releases, including one attended by Nelson Mandela. Although she suffered from dementia toward the end of her life, with C.A.R.E. declining in some ways as she aged, Miljo remained dedicated to the animals she loved until her death. She had no misgivings about the cause to which she’d chosen to give everything.

“The main purpose in my life is to show people that baboons can be beautiful,” she said in Lady Baboon.

“And if I only lived for that, then I had a good life.”

…

To say that day to day life at C.A.R.E. is challenging is an understatement. Snakes occasionally find their way into the centre’s kitchen. Most buildings are encaged to keep out wild baboons and residents who inevitably get loose on occasion. It’s sometimes necessary to run from elephants, who have broken through fences in search of food during droughts. The nearest town is a 45-minute drive away. The heat is unforgiving. Volunteer quarters are small and shared. Even Dewhirst and Munro, who became a couple about seven years ago and live full-time on C.A.R.E.’s grounds, didn’t have their own bathroom until after the birth of their daughter, Sophia, now two-and-a-half.

Still, Dewhirst wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s just stunning,” she says, standing above the Olifants, taking in the breathtaking view that is C.A.R.E.’s backdrop. “It’s magical here.”

About the baboons, she says, “They’re incredible, intelligent and empathetic animals, and you can’t help but let them under your skin once you begin to understand them. You see past their impressive teeth and intimidating size. They’re just trying to survive and protect their families and feed their young in an unforgiving world.

“They steal your heart.”

Dewhirst first came to C.A.R.E. as a 19-year-old volunteer in 2006. By then she’d interned for Goodall and knew she wanted a career involving primates. She kept returning to the centre for temporary stays whenever she could, helping between visits with marketing and networking from afar. In the United Kingdom where she grew up, she took a job at Monkey World, an ape rescue centre, but found herself missing the baboons who she’d come to care about so deeply. After earning a master’s degree in primate conservation from Oxford Brookes University, she returned permanently to C.A.R.E. in 2011.

She wasn’t sure at first whether it was for good – her head was telling her not to let go of a salary, stability and her boyfriend in the U.K. – but then Miljo asked her to lead a project rehabilitating a group of baboons coming from a research lab. It was the push Dewhirst needed.

“I’m sorry for your boyfriend,” Miljo told her, “but so happy for the baboons.”

“To give up all of that,” Dewhirst recalls, “it was a huge emotional ordeal in my mind. But my heart was already here.”

The fire (the cause of which was never discovered) only strengthened her commitment.

In the months after the disaster, former C.A.R.E. volunteers and friends who’d lost touch with Miljo came out of the woodwork with support and donations. It was a critical boost, but for the most part, the early days without Miljo brought only grief and challenges.

Miljo had left the centre to Scottish-born Munro, who at 28 already had a decade of experience at C.A.R.E. under his belt. But Miljo had always been the decision-maker. They could call on C.A.R.E.’s board members for support, but on the ground, everything was suddenly on the shoulders of Munro, Dewhirst and a small group of other young volunteers.

Day by day, with hope and hard work, they found their way.

“We weren’t able to let ourselves think too much,” Dewhirst says of the time.

By 2013, success started creeping back. With a permit and a location secured – both can be hugely challenging – they carried out C.A.R.E.’s first release in years. With Munro away for months camping with the troop, Dewhirst ran the centre without him, surprising herself that she was able to manage, she says.

The whole point is to get these animals out so they can be wild again and free.

C.A.R.E.’s newfound leaders kept pushing, and progress continued. In 2014, the centre finished a new clinic, which Dewhirst helped design along with other new buildings. Enclosures for resident baboons were upgraded; C.A.R.E. now has three massive semi-wild enclosures. The extra space for competition and hiding has allowed caretakers to introduce older male baboons – who before were thought capable only of living alone – into troops. All females are now on contraception, enabling them to replace some human surrogates for incoming orphans. In 2016, the centre completed a new nursery, as well as a visitor area and education centre – a long-time dream that is now in full swing.

“The whole point is to get these animals out so they can be wild again and free,” says Hannah Young, an American who, along with her now-husband Adam, was critical to C.A.R.E.’s survival in the years after Miljo’s death. “We have to have safe places to do that and a community behind us who wants that too.”

Young, who is now back in the United States after years at C.A.R.E., acknowledges that changing attitudes about baboons isn’t easy. “It’s daunting,” she says, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t start somewhere. We have to show people why baboons are important.”

They’re just trying to survive and protect their families and feed their young in an unforgiving world. They steal your heart.

Dewhirst agrees: “We know now that in order for C.A.R.E. to move forward, we need to invite people in.”

Besides C.A.R.E.’s extremely dedicated volunteers, Dewhirst says, the centre’s board members have made a huge difference, namely Karen Pilling and Annalize and Martin Piek.

“They were always just a phone call away to give much-needed emotional support and wisdom,” Dewhirst says.

Today, Munro and Dewhirst – the centre’s managing director and assisting managing director, respectively – are prioritizing releases and searching for a property on which to expand, with a goal of housing all baboons undergoing rehabilitation in semi-wild enclosures. Although they’ve refined her methods over the years, Miljo’s model of forming bonded, cohesive troops for release remains at the core of their work.

In addition to hundreds of baboons, known by name and regarded as family by Munro and Dewhirst, they are raising their daughter Sophia, who is at their side much of the time. Dewhirst says her family back in the U.K. worried about her decision to return to C.A.R.E. with Sophia after she was born, but Dewhirst couldn’t really imagine anything else.

“We’re making it work,” she says.

When she thinks about the future and all the possibility it might hold for C.A.R.E. and for Africa’s baboons, she likes to think of Miljo, who is buried on the centre’s grounds in a coffin she shares with Bobby, who died in the fire beside her.

Miljo was in her late 50s when she started C.A.R.E., Dewhirst notes, and in her 60s when she released her first rehabilitated baboons.

“I just think, wow,” Dewhirst says. “The amount that she achieved in that short space of time is really incredible.

“Who knows what we can achieve? We have so much time.”

Learn more and support C.A.R.E.
Photos and interviews by Jo-Anne McArthur. Text by Corinne Benedict.

Mothers Against Dairy

Mothers Against Dairy

by | May 13, 2018 | Contemporary, Photo Interviews

“Motherhood does not exist to be owned,
commodified, or invaded.”

 

Ashley Capps is a writer, editor, and researcher specializing in farm animal welfare and vegan advocacy. She is also the Founder and Director of the Mothers Against Dairy campaign, a powerful anti-dairy campaign. To mark Mother’s Day, we asked Ashley about how the campaign came to be.

You have mentioned it was a bit unexpected to find yourself running a campaign focused on mothers when you yourself are not a mother. Can you elaborate?

That’s right!— I am not myself a mother. And, with much love and respect to the many amazing mothers I know, I don’t plan on becoming one. For me, there are just too many beings in this world already who are in need of love, care, and protection. As long as there are shelters full of healthy cats and dogs being destroyed every day simply for lack of adopters, I feel like my abilities as a caregiver are best directed at providing a home and family to as many needful animals as time and space allow.

Why did you start speaking out against the dairy industry in particular?  

As a vegan, I am opposed to all forms of exploitation, but I have always found the dairy industry particularly galling. With dairy, we are literally farming mothers for their breast milk. Just think about that for a minute. We force these animals to become mothers, to carry their babies for nine months, and then we steal those babies from them in order to facilitate our theft of their maternal lactations— their child’s baby food— so we can turn it into ice cream and cheese.

For me, the very idea of breeding individuals into existence in order to force them to become mothers so we can needlessly invade and parasitize their mothering relationships is so violently entitled, so deeply offensive, and profoundly anti-mother.

While the dairy industry works tirelessly to position animal milk as a necessary and natural foodstuff for humans, they cannot erase the biological fact that in all species of mammals, mothers’ milk is very specifically baby food, and cow’s milk is for baby cows— just as goat’s milk is for baby goats, sheep’s milk is for baby sheep, and human milk is for young, developing humans. That’s what the stuff is for, and that’s why we are weaned.


Ask any regular milk and cheese consumer to swig a glass of breast milk from a consenting human mother, and they’ll look at you like you’ve lost it. Heck, try recommending the mothers’ milk of any other mammal apart from cows, goats, or sheep as a menu item, and most people will recoil in disgust.

So how is this bizarre cultural dissonance maintained? Much like the tobacco industry, now notorious for its predatory and misleading campaigns, the dairy industry depends upon constant rebranding and investing in a diverse array of authority/celebrity figures for its messaging— from doctors and nutritionists, to million dollar campaigns spotlighting actors and athletes, all insisting how wholesome and good for you— crucial, even— ruminant animal baby food is.

 

And now the dairy industry is using women and mothers in their messaging?”

Yes. As someone who researches the dairy industry regularly, I have observed over the last few years a distressing surge in pro-dairy messaging from an increasingly visible and vocal sector of animal agriculture: female dairy farmers, most of whom are mothers. It is painful and disturbing, to say the least, to see these mothers defending the reproductive subjugation of other mothers, and the destruction of other mothering relationships for profit. But this growing trend is no coincidence; rather, in a climate of increased criticism of cruel dairy farming practices, it represents a strategic industry shift to put more female faces on dairy farming, and to reframe this mother-exploiting industry as a maternal, nurturing one.

From articles like “Why Dairy Farming Needs Women,” which notes: “Farming needs women and all their positive traits,” to the annual Women In Dairy Conference, whose organizers proclaim: “As women, we are inherently empathetic… bound to carry our message of agriculture’s value, wholesomeness and sustainability to a broader audience,” to global industry initiatives like Women in Dairy, Celebrating Dairy Farm Moms, and many more popping up all over the world.

Alongside these initiatives, women and mothers in dairy farming are being incentivized to take to blogging, facebook, instagram, and other high visibility platforms in order to paint dairy farming as an industry of care and nurturing, with a special focus on defending the cruel and routine practice of taking calves away from their mothers.

How ironic, this incessant valuation of family when dairy farming itself is based on devaluing and destroying animal families. Worse, putting these female, maternal faces on the dairy industry gives it a lot more credibility with concerned consumers.


So Mothers Against Dairy is a counter-narrative to this messaging?

Yes. As I observed with increasing frequency the disingenuous and disturbing trend of using human mothers to justify exploiting nonhuman mothers, it occurred to me that creating a platform for vegan moms to share their own reflections about dairy farming could provide a much-needed, powerful counter-narrative. As I mentioned, my work as a writer is frequently focused on dairy, and for years now, I have received comments and messages from vegan mothers relating that the process of becoming a mother was what woke them up to the injustice of dairy farming (and, eventually, led them to go vegan).


Originally, the idea was to publish a one-time Mother’s Day collection of reflections on dairy from vegan mothers to feature at Free from Harm in 2016. But soon after I launched the call for submissions, so many powerful and heartfelt statements began pouring in. I selected 10 of the most impactful for the initial Mother’s Day feature, but as entries continued to come in and as I watched how popular the Mother’s Day piece was, it was clear to me that this should become an ongoing campaign.

And so it has. On Mother’s Day of 2017, the Mothers Against Dairy website was launched, and with now more than 30,000 followers, we continue to publish new statements regularly, and have lots of exciting new projects in the works. To date, we have received statements from mothers in Brazil, Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, India, and the U.S. We’ve featured reflections on dairy and motherhood from mothers of twins, single mothers, mothers who adopted, mothers who miscarried, mothers who gave birth in their 40s, and mothers who gave birth in their teens. What unites them all (among other things) is the belief that motherhood is an inviolable relationship that belongs to no one but the mother and child; that motherhood does not exist to be owned, commodified, or invaded for cultural tradition, commercial profit, or culinary pleasure; that motherhood should never be a thing we exploit.

Could you give us a few samples of some of your favorite statements?

Here are a few snapshots of some of the most powerful reflections Mothers Against Dairy has received to date.

KD Angle-Traegner

 

Maritza Oliver

 

Jo’Vonna Johnson-Cooke

 

Flip Grater

 

Naijha Wright-Brown

 

Christina Elizabeth

 

Poonam Dhup Juneja

 

Sat’Ra Lumumba

 

Karen Ellis-Ritter

 

Neelam Singh

 

Eryn Willner

 

Tabatha James

 

Is there anything else you’d like people to know about Mothers Against Dairy?

Yes! While the stories and perspectives being spotlighted here all come from mothers, this campaign is in no way intended to suggest that you need to be a mother in order to make this connection. Not at all. But in a culture where human motherhood is celebrated as this sacrosanct phenomenon, regarded as the strongest and most indelible of bonds, I think that mothers speaking out against dairy, and against the exploitation of all motherhood, offers an important perspective about shared experience and the need for collective empathy. And I believe that this perspective may be uniquely poised to resonate with those who might otherwise turn away from conversations about dairy cruelty.

As featured mother Jo’Vonna Johnson-Cooke says in her longer statement at our website:

“While being a mother viscerally reinforces my belief that all children and mothers have a birthright to maternal care and companionship, this is something we should all understand as human beings. Being human affords us the responsibility to innovate and shape our interactions with our environment and other living beings in a way that causes the least harm. And it is our humanity that I would hope would cause us to pause and consider the implications of exploiting motherhood and sacrificing lives and families to take something we do not need.”

Ashley Capps is the Founder and Director of the Mothers Against Dairy campaign. She works as a writer, editor and researcher specializing in farmed animal welfare and vegan advocacy, and is a core staff writer for the food justice non-profit A Well-Fed World, and the animal justice non-profit Free from Harm.
Read more from the Mothers Against Dairy archives and learn more about the campaign on their website, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Sharon Núñez

Sharon Núñez

by and | Apr 30, 2018 | Contemporary, Photo Interviews

“Animals need us to be in this for the long term.”

 

Numbers matter to Sharon Núñez.

How many media outlets covered her organization’s latest action? How many people did it reach with recent campaigns? How many viewed its last investigation? How many shared it?

And then there is the number she thinks about most – the only reason she thinks about numbers at all: How many animals have she and her colleagues helped save from some measure of torture or abuse?

“We roughly calculate that we were able to impact 40 million animals in 2017,” says Núñez, co-founder of Animal Equality. “We want every hour and every dollar donated to the organization to spare as many animals as possible.”

That focus on numbers, or, more to the point, on impact, has been Animal Equality’s biggest success since its launch in 2006, Núñez says. It’s also been a huge driver of the organization’s growth into the international powerhouse it is today.

Today we have an entire development department of six people working internationally. But back then, it was basically selling hummus sandwiches.

Just how far has Animal Equality come? Here, numbers are helpful too.

Three is how many people it all started with, and zero is about how much money they had. It was Núñez, Jose Valle, and Javier Moreno, all sharing a small apartment in Madrid, where Núñez, who is Irish-Spanish, grew up. To make rent, they’d take turns working while the two without paying jobs focused full-time on building Animal Equality, then called Igualdad Animal. To raise money for their activism, they hosted vegan dinners and set up booths asking for donations.

Twelve years later, Animal Equality operates in eight countries – the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, and India. It has 80 paid staff and an annual budget of $5.5 million.

“Today we have an entire development department of six people working internationally,” says Núñez, now Animal Equality’s international president. “But back then, it was basically selling hummus sandwiches.”

As Animal Equality grew, Núñez made a point of developing the skills she would need to lead it, including attending management courses, reading extensively, and learning from others in the movement. While she is quick to credit her co-founders and Animal Equality’s global staff and volunteers, they say her leadership has been critical to the organization’s expansion and effectiveness.

“One of the most important things about Sharon is her capacity to learn, and also her capacity to inspire others,” says Moreno. “In a world where leadership is usually based on authority, Sharon’s leadership is based on empowering the teams, creating healthy and safe spaces that allow people to grow, to improve, to make mistakes and to learn from them.

“One of Sharon’s biggest successes is her contribution to a generation of activist all around the world, with her determination, vision, courage, and audacity.”

We want every hour and every dollar donated to the organization to spare as many animals as possible.

Unlike many in animal rights, Núñez says she wasn’t drawn to animals as a child, she suspects because she never really saw them. Her family had no pets, and there were no farm animals in bustling Madrid.

While in college, she began taking an interest in social justice issues. One day, she came across a book that described what happens to cows used for dairy.

“I was so shocked,” Núñez recalls.

She went vegan overnight, and within a few months, she’d decided to dedicate her life to helping animals.

“I just couldn’t live otherwise,” she explains. “I just said, ‘OK, I need to deal with this.’”

After attending a talk by a well-known animal rights activist about the importance of activism, Núñez quickly got involved with the only animal rights group she could find in Spain, later working with groups in the UK. She was 26 when she co-founded Igualdad Animal. Valle and Moreno were 28.

“We really wanted an organization that was focused on defending animals,” Núñez says, “and we had very strong ideas on how we could accomplish that mission.”

Animals need us to be in this for the long term.

In the beginning, they focused heavily on drawing media attention. For their first action, they chained themselves to the entrance of a slaughterhouse. Soon they were lowering themselves from bullfighting rings and jumping onto catwalks where models strutted in fur. Following the example of activists like Australia’s Patty Mark, they began conducting open rescues. Animal Equality was the first to infiltrate Spanish slaughterhouses and present images from inside to the public.

“We had almost no resources, but we managed to get a tremendous amount of media,” Núñez says. “It was just understanding that if we wanted people to think and talk about animal issues, we needed to bring animal issues into their homes. We were constantly brainstorming ideas on how to do that.

“That really created a lot of momentum for the organization, and that’s how we started to build our name in Spain and get our first members and donors.”

By 2010, Animal Equality had opened its first office outside of the country, in the UK, although its efforts had long had an international focus. By 2011, Núñez and her fellow activists had made such an impact that powerful players profiting from animal exploitation – particularly in Spain’s fur industry – were going to extreme lengths to try to stop them.

That June, Núñez and a group of others were arrested in coordinated, armed raids that clearly had been spurred by their anti-fur efforts. Núñez was driving to film at a slaughterhouse with two other activists when their car was surrounded by police. Others were arrested at home, with authorities confiscating computers, cameras and more.

The activists came to be known as the Spanish 12. Núñez and most of the others spent five days in jail, with three activists remaining imprisoned for a month. In the end, no one was convicted, but Núñez considered a long prison sentence a real possibility.

“It was just incredible that the fur industry would have so much power,” she says.

In 2014, based on its philosophy that its efforts should impact the greatest numbers of animals possible, Animal Equality made the decision to focus exclusively on those raised and killed for food.

I’ve been inside hundreds of farms. I’ve seen mother pigs in crates giving birth and their babies just falling on the floor, with the mother pig unable to reach them. It’s horrific.

Today, the organization has presented more than 80 investigations from 700 farms and slaughterhouses in 13 countries, including several virtual reality videos. A top-rated charity, its campaigns, legal advocacy and corporate outreach have led to cage bans, farm closures and cruelty convictions.

Besides its focus on results and on high-impact media actions, Núñez says Animal Equality’s international approach has been key, as has the organization’s flexibility.

“We always say we only want to do what works,” she says, giving Animal Equality’s position on welfare campaigns as an example. Originally, the organization strictly advocated only veganism.

“It was through analysis and seeing the impact that welfare campaigns were having for animals that we were able to question our strategy. Today we have an incredibly successful corporate outreach department because we were flexible.”

Investigations have also been crucial, helping Animal Equality become known in each of the countries where it works. But Núñez adds they’ve also been the hardest part.

“That’s definitely been the most difficult thing for me,” she says. “I’ve been inside hundreds of farms. I’ve seen mother pigs in crates giving birth and their babies just falling on the floor, with the mother pig unable to reach them. It’s horrific.”

She still takes part in investigations, but not at nearly the pace she once did. She is now based in Animal Equality’s 10-person Los Angeles office, although she is often on the road or in the air, visiting other Animal Equality offices and speaking at conferences and events.

Her advice for others in the movement? On leadership, she says constantly seeking to learn has served her well.

“It’s an ongoing journey. I still think I have so much to learn and improve.”

She adds, “I think the most important quality in a leader, though, is respecting others, and I try to practice that every day.”

For handling the many stresses of working on behalf of animals, she encourages patience, perspective and self-care. For her, that includes daily meditation, less time spent on social media and more spent outside.

“Animals need us to be in this for the long term,” she says.

As for what that looks like for Animal Equality, “I just hope we continue being impact-oriented and flexible,” Núñez says. “And future successes will come from that.”

Learn more and support Animal Equality.
Photos and interview by Jo-Anne McArthur. Text by Corinne Benedict.

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.