ANIMAL AID

Like all vegan campaign groups and charities, Animal Aid have not had an easy time in 2020. That hasn’t stopped them working but it has changed the way they work.

2020 was a strange year for everyone. Campaign organisations such as Animal Aid were no exception to the enormous upheaval we all faced. Covid 19 meant that we had to rapidly adapt our plans for upcoming campaigns, our campaigning strategies and planned events. This presented unique challenges for all of us, for covid-safety we were unable to send out resources, the majority of our staff working from home, having to temporarily close our online shop, and cancel or adapt any in person events or stunts.

One such event was our Wildlife Summit hosted by Vegfest, which took place for the first time in 2019 at Vegfest London. While hosting this online seemed a little daunting at first, we soon realised this presented a great opportunity to include guests and speakers who previously wouldn’t have been able to attend in person. Together with Humane Wildlife Solutions, we went ahead with the summit and were joined by interviewees and speakers from around the UK, and even one from South Africa! Such a positive event, the interviews and talks are still available to view on

www.vegfest.co.uk

We also took time in 2020 to work on our educational resources – the change to online learning meant we could now deliver online talks to schools in areas beyond our normal reach. Our Education department delivered over 210 school talks, despite the schools being for some of the year. We released some new and updated reports, including our report on wildlife culling, With Extreme Prejudice, our horse racing consultant co-authored a report on the effectiveness (or lack of) of the whip, and we released a timely update to out report Is Factory Farming Making You Sick? All of these are available on our website.

Understandably, getting media attention for campaigns was particularly difficult last year. However, we still managed to get coverage for some of our investigations, one of which was our game bird breeding farm investigation, which found birds in barren and oppressive cages. This was covered by The Independent.

Screenshot of 'A conversation with Iain Green..' livestream from the VegfestUK & Animal Aid Wildlife Summit 2020

While many things are still uncertain and planning for the future is somewhat tricky, we have lots in the pipeline and are feeling very optimistic. Animal Aid as an organisation has also gone through some changes; at the end of last year we welcomed our new Director, Iain Green.

Do keep an eye on our website and social media for some campaign announcements in the coming months, and make sure to check our ‘Take Action’ page

www.animalaid.org.uk/get-involved/take-action

to find out how you can help.

Animal Testing – EDM in Parliament

Our campaign calling for a ban on the use of animals in warfare experiments is going well, despite our wonderful supporters not being able to distribute resources, as they usually would. There is a motion in Parliament, called an EDM, which also calls for a ban on the use of animals in warfare experiments. The EDM has been signed by 98 MPs. We’ve planned a virtual event for MPs which we hope unveil soon. In addition to this, we’ve requested information from Porton Down, which we will share with our supporters, in the future, along with details of more warfare experiments on animals.

One of Animal Aid’s School Speakers, Sadie