A number of VIVA members take part in Vegan Outreach’s Adopt A College Program. If you would like to get involved helping educate people about factory farming contact John at dangerbowers@hotmail.com

The following information is from John Bowers, who is on VIVA’s Administration Team and coordinates VIVA’s Education Outreach.

Raising Awareness with Educational Information
From experience, we know that a small, but significant, percentage of those receiving this information will be profoundly moved in such a way as to alter their choices of foods. Many will adopt veganism, some will become vegetarians, while others will aim to reduce or eliminate their consumption of factory farmed animals. I believe that this work is the single most effective method of reducing suffering in today’s world. I have come to this conclusion after having spent the past fifteen years involved in a broad array of activities whose fundamental commonality is the pursuit of a more just and peaceful world.

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My work with VIVA and Vegan Outreach

Matt Ball, co-founder of Vegan Outreach recently gave a speech at a food conference. I have adapted his speech to reflect my own views.

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Vegan Outreach’s mission is to reduce the amount of suffering in the world as much as possible. The focus is on what people choose to eat for the three reasons: The numbers, the suffering, and the opportunity.

1. The number of animals raised and killed for food each year vastly exceeds any other form of exploitation. About 700,000,000 farmed animals (chickens, turkeys, pigs, sheep, and cattle) will be slaughtered in Canada this year. In the U.S., this total is about 10 billion. In other words – every single year, the number of feeling creatures killed for food in North America is far greater than the human population of the entire world.

2. The level of suffering is horrific and a result of standard industry practices. If these billions of animals lived happy, healthy lives and had quick, painless deaths, then the goal for reducing suffering would lead elsewhere. But animals currently raised for food in Canada and the U.S. endure unfathomable suffering.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of advocating on behalf of these animals is trying to describe what these animals endure: the overcrowding and confinement, the stench, the noise, the extremes of heat and cold, the attacks and even cannibalism, the hunger and starvation, the illness…the near-constant horror of every day of their lives. Indeed, every year, hundreds of millions of these animals don’t even make it to slaughter. They actually suffer to death.

3. Finally, the most important reason to focus on people’s diets is the opportunity. If there were nothing we could do for the animals raised and slaughtered for food – if, for example, it all happened in a distant land beyond our influence – then the focus would be different. But adopting and advocating a vegan diet is the most cost-effective way we can reduce suffering. The average Canadian consumes about three dozen factory-farmed land animals each year. Over the course of a lifetime, this translates into thousands of animals.

We don’t have to overthrow a government. We don’t have to forsake modern life. We don’t have to win an election or convince politicians. Given the straightforward case for vegetarianism, why is it so hard to persuade people to change their diets?

From experience we have come to know that most people are not swayed by intellectual arguments, but rather by the norms of those around them. If we are raised among those who are racist, or Christian, or vegetarian, that is generally how we end up. If our peer group changes though, it is often possible for us to consider new ideas.

If we want to end the quantity and degree of suffering caused by modern animal agriculture, we have to narrow our focus to convincing those groups of people whose peer groups are in flux, and who are thus most likely to reconsider their worldview and their food choices.

There is a relative openness within young people. From social science research, as well as from our own experience, the primary audience are students from high school to university and college. Historically, social change has generally taken root first in these younger individuals, from women’s rights to civil rights to gay rights.

Reach them before high school, and they’re generally too dependent on their parents. Reach them after college, and they tend to have already selected their surroundings, friends, and political views.

So the focus is on high school and college students. We have found that the best way to get this group to consider changing their habits is not to make philosophical arguments that encourage a change in moral framework. Rather, the best way is to leverage people’s existing moral intuitions that cruelty to animals is wrong. We show the disgusting hidden realities of factory farms, through graphic video footage and pictures, backed up by industry quotations. And people are appalled – not because factory farming runs counter to their morality, but because it’s plainly out of step with how we feel animals should be treated.

Based on my experience and the experiences of hundreds of other activists, our best tactic is to “appeal” to people’s pre-existing revulsion towards animal cruelty. Even so, at this time, only a minority are willing to explore a vegetarian diet. And many of those who do try vegetarianism will quit if they don’t find a group of similar-minded individuals, or if they lose support and reinforcement after entering the workplace.

Nevertheless there is reason for optimism. Unlike twenty years ago, when most animal advocacy was focused on fur and vivisection, more and more groups and individuals have been focusing on exposing the cruelty of factory farms and promoting vegetarianism, particularly among youth. Partly because of this change in advocacy, vegetarianism is far more widespread and accessible than it was just twenty years ago.

Of course, this won’t happen on its own, which leads to a big question and final point; namely: Why should we care?

We should care because being a part of the progress toward justice is in our individual and collective best interest. Happiness isn’t to be found in “stuff.” While we live in a very wealthy country, Canadians are far from the happiest people on earth. Perhaps happiness is the result of a meaningful life, and that meaning comes not from things, but from accomplishment. Meaningful accomplishment comes from living life beyond ourselves, viewing our existence beyond the immediate. Doing our thoughtful best to make the world a better place is as meaningful a life as I can imagine.

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There are ongoing opportunities to do animal advocacy with Vegan Outreach’s Adopt a College Program. To see the colleges leafleted in B.C. click Here .

If you see things in a similar light and would like to help educate young people by handing out literature, call me – John @ 386-2100 or email dangerbowers@hotmail.com