WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.480 If you've been in city center lately, you might have seen one of the Go Vegan campaign posters 00:00:04.480 --> 00:00:07.320 outside your favorite shops, or even at your bus stop. 00:00:07.320 --> 00:00:13.060 Signs that say things like, "Eggs - what price does he pay?" and there are even stronger messages. 00:00:13.060 --> 00:00:19.020 Thought provoking adverts are going to be appearing on Birmingham taxis, on the Warsaw digital billboard, 00:00:19.060 --> 00:00:22.260 on the M6, on video screens at New Street. 00:00:22.260 --> 00:00:26.880 I've got John Connors on the line, he's president of Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers Association 00:00:26.880 --> 00:00:31.800 John, what do you make of these ads, these posters and the message that they're portraying? 00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:40.829 Hi it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget. There’s no shortage 00:00:40.829 --> 00:00:45.989 of animals in advertising, with many-specied mascots hawking all manner of products, up 00:00:45.989 --> 00:00:49.399 to and including their own flesh and secretions. 00:00:49.399 --> 00:00:54.670 Catering perfectly to the inherent dichotomy of animal lovers who eat animals, meat, dairy 00:00:54.670 --> 00:01:00.520 and egg industry ads are rife with smiling animals all too happy to be eaten, or comically 00:01:00.520 --> 00:01:06.330 encouraging the consumption of others. This rather perverse yet extremely pervasive concept 00:01:06.330 --> 00:01:10.800 is something I explored in depth in this video, Do Animals Want To Be Eaten? 00:01:10.800 --> 00:01:15.960 But what if the animals we eat actually ran their own ad campaign and replaced the billboards 00:01:15.960 --> 00:01:21.111 emblazoned with their severed body parts and secretions with distinct individuals. What 00:01:21.111 --> 00:01:25.640 would they say to us? What would they ask of us? And how would it change our behavior 00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:27.580 and attitudes towards them? 00:01:27.580 --> 00:01:31.990 This is the very premise of Go Vegan World, the largest and longest-running vegan public 00:01:31.990 --> 00:01:37.509 advertising campaign spanning several countries and reaching hundreds of millions of people. 00:01:37.509 --> 00:01:41.649 At the heart of this incredibly effective international endeavor is Sandra Higgins, 00:01:41.649 --> 00:01:46.219 a vegan psychologist, educator, activist, and the founder and director of Eden Farmed 00:01:46.219 --> 00:01:48.979 Animal Sanctuary, the first of its kind in Ireland. 00:01:48.979 --> 00:01:53.909 In addition to caring for Eden’s 120 or so residents, Sandra delivers speeches all 00:01:53.909 --> 00:01:58.369 over the world and provides vegan mentorship and classes through Matilda’s Promise, a 00:01:58.369 --> 00:02:02.799 vegan education center named after one of Eden’s first residents. Please see the blog 00:02:02.799 --> 00:02:07.549 post for this video linked in the description to learn more about Matilda’s story. 00:02:07.549 --> 00:02:12.190 Without further ado, let’s hear from Sandra herself about the genesis of Go Vegan World 00:02:12.190 --> 00:02:13.609 from the roots of Eden: 00:02:13.609 --> 00:02:18.530 I realized for every individual that lives at Eden, this is the most important thing 00:02:18.530 --> 00:02:24.030 that we can offer them: a home. But in terms of the changes we need in the world—in the 00:02:24.030 --> 00:02:28.650 way that we relate to other species, other animals—that’s not enough. We need vegan 00:02:28.650 --> 00:02:29.650 education. 00:02:29.650 --> 00:02:35.350 So Go Vegan World, really, was born out of a period of darkness for me, where I felt 00:02:35.350 --> 00:02:39.730 very frustrated. I was running the Vegan Education center and I was doing individual vegan mentoring, 00:02:39.730 --> 00:02:47.120 but most of the people attending, were attending online from outside Ireland. The speaking 00:02:47.120 --> 00:02:50.670 invitations I was getting were coming from outside Ireland. 00:02:50.670 --> 00:02:57.040 So I was in this dark place that many activists would be familiar with: lying awake at night, 00:02:57.040 --> 00:03:02.260 feeling frustrated, seeing the results at the cold face of animal activism, seeing the 00:03:02.260 --> 00:03:07.370 victims coming here and feeling stymied and feeling like my mouth had been zipped shut 00:03:07.370 --> 00:03:11.400 and there was nothing I could do to get that message out to the world. 00:03:11.400 --> 00:03:15.709 The idea was inspired by the idea of people that had run bus advertising in the United 00:03:15.709 --> 00:03:21.569 States and in Canada, and I decided to do that here in Ireland. So I did that for about 00:03:21.569 --> 00:03:27.360 4 months and it was extremely successful, and it was so successful that we decided to 00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:29.380 make it an International campaign. 00:03:29.380 --> 00:03:33.820 And the strength of Go Vegan World, is that the animals, for the first time ever, are 00:03:33.820 --> 00:03:39.129 on the streets—real individuals—many of them who live at Eden—lives and died—I 00:03:39.129 --> 00:03:42.439 mean some of them have died while the campaign is on the streets. 00:03:42.439 --> 00:03:46.650 For instance we had Diana, who was in the first campaign: They Trust Us - We Betray 00:03:46.650 --> 00:03:52.680 Them, and then some of her photographs were in the second campaign, and as the campaign 00:03:52.680 --> 00:03:58.739 progressed, I got a phone call to say that she had gone blind, and within 4 weeks she 00:03:58.739 --> 00:04:04.670 had died. They live and die here, and the very least we can do is let them tell their 00:04:04.670 --> 00:04:05.670 own stories. 00:04:05.670 --> 00:04:06.670 https://www.dropbox.com/s/j2bmdyte26imnfk/Newcastle%20Station%20Diana.jpg?dl=0 00:04:06.670 --> 00:04:10.261 We used to think here in the beginning of Eden that we were rescuing them. No, they 00:04:10.261 --> 00:04:18.349 are rescuing us from our ignorance and I am still ignorant—every single day I learn 00:04:18.349 --> 00:04:22.820 something new about them and about what we’re doing to them. 00:04:22.820 --> 00:04:26.800 That’s the strength of what’s coming from Eden and that’s why I feel that the work 00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:29.349 I do here is not mine, it’s their work. 00:04:29.349 --> 00:04:34.810 Some of the very strong ways in which Eden and the residents at Eden have influenced 00:04:34.810 --> 00:04:41.370 the Go Vegan World campaign are some of those last ads that I used, like “Vegetarianism 00:04:41.370 --> 00:04:47.590 Is Not Enough”—for all the animals used for clothing, in research, for animals used 00:04:47.590 --> 00:04:51.000 for eggs, for the mammals used in the dairy industry. 00:04:51.000 --> 00:04:56.650 When anybody comes to Eden, and they talk about cutting down on animal use and eating 00:04:56.650 --> 00:05:01.949 less meat is nearly always the one they come up with, I introduce them to, say to one of 00:05:01.949 --> 00:05:07.250 the enclosures here where we have Emily, George, and Charlotte, and I ask them, you know, 00:05:07.250 --> 00:05:11.550 “If you want to eat less, can you tell me which of them you’ll spare and which of 00:05:11.550 --> 00:05:13.440 them you’ll kill?” 00:05:13.440 --> 00:05:18.699 And the message gets home very quickly that eating less meat is no use to the one who 00:05:18.699 --> 00:05:20.460 is killed 00:05:20.460 --> 00:05:25.970 This incredibly simple yet profoundly powerful approach of focusing on the animal’s individuality 00:05:25.970 --> 00:05:30.520 and personhood is the key to Go Vegan World’s effectiveness, especially within the heart 00:05:30.520 --> 00:05:35.610 of Ireland’s agricultural areas. I asked Sandra whether the cultural location of the 00:05:35.610 --> 00:05:40.080 ads affected their composition, if she’d had any difficulty securing space, and what 00:05:40.080 --> 00:05:42.470 the public reception has been so far: 00:05:42.470 --> 00:05:48.090 It hasn't affected how I’ve constructed the ads at all, because the ads tell the truth 00:05:48.090 --> 00:05:54.330 about animal use, and what the animals need from us, so they stay the same regardless 00:05:54.330 --> 00:06:00.550 of where I show the ads. The International campaign is running in the center of some 00:06:00.550 --> 00:06:06.630 of the largest cities in the world: London, Birmingham, Glasgow; the 3 largest cities 00:06:06.630 --> 00:06:11.210 in the United Kingdom. How they’re received is very different though. 00:06:11.210 --> 00:06:17.570 In the U.K. people have been very, very receptive. So in a 2-week period following the largest 00:06:17.570 --> 00:06:23.880 campaign that we’ve run in Birmingham, 36,000 people have expressed interest in downloading 00:06:23.880 --> 00:06:29.819 the vegan guide. The public are not insulted by what you're telling them—they're anxious 00:06:29.819 --> 00:06:34.600 to know. And the words that rang in my ears all the time in the U.K. were: “I never 00:06:34.600 --> 00:06:35.600 knew this.” 00:06:35.600 --> 00:06:40.569 The Birmingham Mail actually ran a poll asking people about the effect that the campaign 00:06:40.569 --> 00:06:45.550 had on them. I think it was 63% of people said they would go vegan having seen the campaign. 00:06:45.550 --> 00:06:49.220 And another 10% said they would consider going vegan. 00:06:49.220 --> 00:06:55.180 Also the advertising world itself has taken an interest in the campaign. The campaign 00:06:55.180 --> 00:07:00.030 won an award for the bathroom advertising.  Not the most attractive of advertising but 00:07:00.030 --> 00:07:06.020 because it’s such a dwell time it’s really effective, so…  In that campaign I tried 00:07:06.020 --> 00:07:12.110 to dispel the myth of humane use, particularly in the egg and dairy industry, and the notion 00:07:12.110 --> 00:07:15.060 that animal foods are necessary for human health. 00:07:15.060 --> 00:07:19.680 Marketing Week ran something on us last month on the subject of disruptive advertising. 00:07:19.680 --> 00:07:24.789 So in the same paragraph as Sony, and Facebook and The Financial Times, they included Go 00:07:24.789 --> 00:07:26.490 Vegan World advertising. 00:07:26.490 --> 00:07:31.380 The whole campaign is designed to get people to got to the website so that they get accurate 00:07:31.380 --> 00:07:36.659 information about animal use; and a clear and consistent call to stop using other animals 00:07:36.659 --> 00:07:42.639 completely and now; and to make it easy for them to do that.  And one of the most effective 00:07:42.639 --> 00:07:45.310 tools of the campaign is the Vegan Guide. 00:07:45.310 --> 00:07:51.069 So people can download that either by seeing the ads on the street, or through social media 00:07:51.069 --> 00:07:56.310 or through the online advertising campaign that I run that targets non-vegans.  Or they 00:07:56.310 --> 00:08:01.540 can use the Q-Code that’s on some of the ads that are at eye level on the street.  Or 00:08:01.540 --> 00:08:03.389 they can use a free text number. 00:08:03.389 --> 00:08:09.370 In Ireland people were a lot more defensive. And of course, in agricultural areas, this 00:08:09.370 --> 00:08:14.629 is very entrenched in the Irish psyche: the relationship with the land and the belief 00:08:14.629 --> 00:08:20.800 that other animals are our property, the belief that it actually forms some kind of economic 00:08:20.800 --> 00:08:25.550 security in the country, which it actually doesn't. People felt very threatened, they 00:08:25.550 --> 00:08:32.150 felt that I was threatening their way of earning a living and their very lifestyles. 00:08:32.150 --> 00:08:36.660 In terms of securing ad space, there was a lot more difficulty in Ireland than it has 00:08:36.660 --> 00:08:43.020 been outside Ireland, so the campaign almost didn't happen in Ireland, at all. I’ve also 00:08:43.020 --> 00:08:47.270 had difficulty in the UK. I’ve had difficulty on television but I haven't had difficulty 00:08:47.270 --> 00:08:48.579 with the outdoor advertising. 00:08:48.579 --> 00:08:52.339 It’s the first time a vegan ad has ever made it to television. It’s been viewed 00:08:52.339 --> 00:08:57.160 by a lot of people; we’ve seen an increase in the number of Vegan Guide downloads.  And 00:08:57.160 --> 00:09:03.089 very interestingly, there have been no complaints.  There have been complaints in the UK about 00:09:03.089 --> 00:09:08.070 the street ads, but there have been no complaints about the television ad. 00:09:08.070 --> 00:09:12.990 As Sandra said, animal agriculture is deeply rooted within Ireland’s culture, economy, 00:09:12.990 --> 00:09:17.320 and national identity. This was one of the most challenging aspects for me as an outsider 00:09:17.320 --> 00:09:21.950 attempting to speak about veganism in Ireland.  It was my research for that speech led me to 00:09:21.950 --> 00:09:26.100 Sandra’s work in the first place. I reached out to her for insight and expertise, and 00:09:26.100 --> 00:09:31.110 had the distinct honor of sharing the stories of Eden residents Joy and Alice in my speech 00:09:31.110 --> 00:09:35.360 in Dublin. Months later, while walking the grounds of Eden, Sandra told me a story that 00:09:35.360 --> 00:09:37.880 gave me goosebumps, and hope for change. 00:09:37.880 --> 00:09:42.860 One of the most remarkable examples was the farmer who gave us two of the pigs who are 00:09:42.860 --> 00:09:48.880 here, Emily and Charlotte. He gave us Grace as well and Grace died very young. 00:09:48.880 --> 00:09:52.529 I was just going to bed one night, at about 10:00 or half-10:00 and there was a knock 00:09:52.529 --> 00:09:57.480 on the door and it was the farmer who had given us the pigs.  And he came back to ask 00:09:57.480 --> 00:10:03.399 me how we ever started to do this to other animals, and he was very interested.  And 00:10:03.399 --> 00:10:08.790 he came again a few weeks ago, and he said, the more he talks to us and the more he sees 00:10:08.790 --> 00:10:15.600 what we do here the more convinced he is that farming is wrong and veganism is right. 00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:20.250 Of course, when you see the inside of farms, and when you see the condition of the bodies 00:10:20.250 --> 00:10:25.029 that I rescue and what they go through and the deaths they have, of course it’s very 00:10:25.029 --> 00:10:30.500 easy to blame farmers.  And when we think about the dreadful things they do in the dairy 00:10:30.500 --> 00:10:34.560 industry and the egg industry, and the mutilations and everything, of course it’s easy to look 00:10:34.560 --> 00:10:36.209 at them and say they’re heartless. 00:10:36.209 --> 00:10:41.940 But they’re doing what their fathers did. They’re doing what this country tells them 00:10:41.940 --> 00:10:46.180 to do, what it encourages them to do, what it pays them to do. They’re doing what we 00:10:46.180 --> 00:10:50.660 pay them to do every time we go into a shop and make a non-vegan purchase. They’re doing 00:10:50.660 --> 00:10:54.421 what the schools are teaching them to do, but they’re not the only problem. And it’s 00:10:54.421 --> 00:10:59.391 very heartening when farmers come to Eden and are open to what we’re doing here. Just 00:10:59.391 --> 00:11:02.200 open enough to listen. That there might be an alternative way. 00:11:02.200 --> 00:11:07.410 So one of the strengths of Go Vegan World, is that we’ve tried—and to a certain extent 00:11:07.410 --> 00:11:13.160 we’ve succeeded in—building positive relationships with farmers so that they see plant-based 00:11:13.160 --> 00:11:18.020 agriculture as an alternative to their current life and that they understand that veganism 00:11:18.020 --> 00:11:23.630 is not the enemy of farmers. We always need farmers and veganism is very much the friend 00:11:23.630 --> 00:11:25.320 of farmers. 00:11:25.320 --> 00:11:29.970 The residents of Eden have not only changed the hearts of farmers and launched an international 00:11:29.970 --> 00:11:34.660 ad campaign, but they were also the impetus for Sandra’s own vegan conversion. 00:11:34.660 --> 00:11:53.410 All my work is inspired and informed by the animals at Eden. I learned about sentience 00:11:53.410 --> 00:11:58.830 from them, just by observing them. They made me question. I started to think about it. 00:11:58.830 --> 00:12:04.440 I fell into the humane myth thing for a few months. I was vegetarian myself, but I was 00:12:04.440 --> 00:12:10.250 still cooking meat for other people, and we were still using eggs and dairy products. 00:12:10.250 --> 00:12:15.440 And then one night some goats arrived in our yard, and they belonged to one of the dairies 00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:23.950 close by us, so I visited that dairy when we gave the goats back, and I walked out vegan. 00:12:23.950 --> 00:12:29.709 And I spent the next week researching animal rights, and I found the film “Earthlings” 00:12:29.709 --> 00:12:36.579 and when I watched “Earthlings” I threw out every animal product in the house. I went 00:12:36.579 --> 00:12:40.779 vegan overnight. You know, the food wasn't great for the first fortnight. I didn't know 00:12:40.779 --> 00:12:46.820 what I was doing. I was worried about my health, because I have severe, very severe osteoporosis. 00:12:46.820 --> 00:12:50.839 And I have to say that it was easy. It was easy, and I’ve never looked back, and it 00:12:50.839 --> 00:12:52.190 completely changed my life. 00:12:52.190 --> 00:12:56.550 I hope that you’ve enjoyed hearing from Sandra and, through her, the many survivors 00:12:56.550 --> 00:13:00.800 who have lived and died at Eden. Though she will always defer to them, and rightly so, 00:13:00.800 --> 00:13:06.100 I am constantly amazed by not only the astounding scope of Sandra’s activism, but also her 00:13:06.100 --> 00:13:09.420 dedication to preserving the integrity their message. 00:13:09.420 --> 00:13:13.310 If you want to help support this vital work, Eden is in need of volunteers, and currently 00:13:13.310 --> 00:13:16.910 has some job vacancies as well. Please see the blog post linked in the description for 00:13:16.910 --> 00:13:21.880 how to apply. You can also share the Go Vegan World campaign to further the reach of their 00:13:21.880 --> 00:13:22.880 stories. 00:13:22.880 --> 00:13:26.172 My deepest thanks to Sandra for sparing time from her certainly packed schedule to be on 00:13:26.172 --> 00:13:30.810 the channel. Give this video a like and be sure to share it far and wide. Subscribe to 00:13:30.810 --> 00:13:35.130 the channel and click the bell to enable notifications of new videos. If you want to help support 00:13:35.130 --> 00:13:39.579 messages like this, see the support links below or join us in the Nugget Army on Patreon 00:13:39.579 --> 00:13:41.040 via the link in the sidebar. 00:13:41.040 --> 00:13:55.980 Now go live vegan, world, and I’ll see you soon.