How I Learned to Love Shrimp

Penny Tehilah on uniting “welfarists” and “abolitionists” through pressure campaigns

• Amy Odene & James Ozden

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Penny, the Executive Director of Animal Activism Collective, has helped bring hundreds of new activists into the grassroots animal movement, as well as supporting dozens of local grassroots groups around the US. Collectively, these groups, and AAC’s network, have been responsible for securing dozens of victories for animals, including getting over 80 companies and restaurants to drop foie gras, fur and much more.

That’s why I was very excited to speak with Penny today about something that feels pretty unique in our movement: A grassroots organisation like Animal Activism Collective working on cage-free campaigns in partnership with less grassroots-y organisations. In addition to this, we spoke about how AAC manages to get dozens of people to travel across the country to join their in-person weeks of action, why Penny thinks movement unity is important, the benefits of getting people in-person and even how Penny started caring about shrimp! 

This is an episode with lots of fun stories and we’re also trying something new by splicing in audio of their protests, so people can get a sense of the energy they bring.

Resources:

Chapters:

  • What Penny has changed her mind on (00:03:41)
  • The RAGE tour: 30 days straight of protest (00:09:20)
  • AAC's collaboration with ICAW and CAFT on cage-free & fur campaigns (00:11:02)
  • How did the collaboration between ICAW and AAC on cage-free campaigns start? (00:16:25)
  • How did AAC's grassroots base react to welfare-focused campaigns? (00:21:20)
  • Why Penny is so excited about pressure campaigns (00:24:20)
  • How Penny became convinced that welfare campaigns are important (00:30:40)
  • How do we create more similar collaborations in the movement? (00:33:48)
  • AAC's mentorship and other programs (00:38:26)
  • Why an organised grassroots base is essential to social change (00:46:41)
  • Penny's recommendations and a win she's grateful for (00:58:29)

If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - we would really appreciate it! Likewise, feel free to share it with anyone who you think might enjoy it. You can send us feedback and guest recommendations via Twitter or email us at hello@howilearnedtoloveshrimp.com. Enjoy!

Penny:

I came up doing outreach. That was like how I got started in the animal rights movement, like so many of us had, and it was just so. I really sat back at the end of the day and after like years, I was like I don't know if I've made a single person vegan, like I don't know None of my family or friends have gone vegan. And all these people I have, these hundreds of people I've talked to over years, I don't know any of them, like I can't keep up with them. I don't know if they went vegan, like I have no way to know if I have made any change in their life. And that, to me, was just like I, like I.

Penny:

This is not what animals deserve for us to not be able to like know if we're helping them at all. Whereas pressure campaigning, it's like I now can 100% with confidence say that this store or this restaurant is no longer selling foie gras and they never will. And neither are these you know 50 other restaurants that I've campaigned against, or this store's designers no longer working with fur, and these media outlets are writing about this designer and their influence of no longer working with fur, which is changing how other designers work and how fur is seen like in the fashion world. It's just so tangible and something that we can like really point to.

James:

Penny, who is the executive director of Animal Activism Collective, has helped bring in hundreds of new activists into the grassroots animal movement, as well as supporting dozens of local grassroots groups around the US. Collectively, these groups, as well as Animal Activism Collective's broader network, have been responsible for securing dozens of victories for animals, including getting over 80 companies and restaurants to drop use of foie gras, fur and much more, and that's why I was very excited to speak with Penny today about something that feels pretty unique in our movement, which is a grassroots organization like Animal Activism Collective, or AAC for short, working on K-tree campaigns in partnership with non-grassroots organizations. In addition to this, we spoke about how AAC manages to get dozens of people to travel all the way across the US to join their in-person weeks of actions, their Rage Tour, which is their current month-long tour across the US, why Penny thinks movement unity is so important, the benefits of getting people out in person, and even how Penny started caring about shrimp. This is an episode with lots of fun stories about their activism, and we're also trying something new by splicing in some audio of their protests so people can get a sense of the pretty amazing energy they bring.

James:

And, in somewhat related news. A grassroots group I volunteer with UK Voters for Animals is hosting a mass lobby day in the UK where we're bringing over 100 people to Parliament to meet with our MPs about the importance of banning cages for farmed animals. So if you're in the UK or know someone who is and you want to know more, check out the links in the show notes for more information on how you can sign up Now without further ado, enjoy the conversation with Penny. Penny thanks for joining the show.

Penny:

How are you doing I'm doing great, super exhausted from the tour that I'm on right now, but overall pretty good.

James:

Nice. Yes, We'll talk about the month-long Rage Tour you're on, I'm sure, in lots of detail. I'm excited to cover that, but we'd like to start everyone with the same question, which is what's something you changed your mind on recently and why.

Penny:

I'd say something. I don't know if I, like super duper, changed my mind about it, but just something. I've been like really realizing the importance of, and definitely underestimated the importance of, in-person networking and in-person activism and meeting other activists. When AAC first started, we were an entirely online platform. Like the whole idea of AAC was well, we started in April of 2020.

Penny:

So, like right at the heart of the pandemic, and the organization was really born out of this question, like how can we still help animals and be effective activists in the age of COVID and amongst all these lockdowns?

Penny:

So the program started as this entirely online program where we had our mentorship program and anybody could apply to be a mentee and we would digitally connect aspiring activists with, like our network of mentors.

Penny:

And that's how the program runs today and it's like great and accessible. That kind of laid the foundation for, I guess, the type of activism like you know that I thought was important or great, but we I pretty quickly started to realize and I've just really been like so like concrete in this fact over the last like year or so that meeting people in person and connecting with like activists in person is absolutely crucial to developing relationships and to doing good activism and to like working with people, but I think the thing that cemented this for me was our convergences yeah that's like definitely my favorite part of what aac does, and you want to say what a convergence is, because I think you guys it's a particular name for like a thing you do, but I don't haven't heard anyone else call this like, maybe use the term convergence a convergence is what we call like our in-person events.

Penny:

a couple times a year we host these convergences where we basically do activism in a city around the campaign. Seven to 10 days are most of them, and then we usually have one that's like a long weekend, like three to four days, but we try and get people from all over the world, whoever can make it out. We get an Airbnb in a city and we all stay together in the airbnb. We pack as many people as we live together for however long the convergence is.

Penny:

We cook together, everybody meets each other and we do activism. Like all day, every day, these are super burner events.

Penny:

They're like, packed full with activism yeah we're like suffering together and like being exhausted together. It's absolutely fantastic and they're usually surrounding a campaign. So our most recent one we had in new york was around the current fur campaigns that coalition to abolish the fur trade cap, which is like a group we work a lot with. We did a lot of work with them and their campaign against conde nass, and then we worked with icod at international council for animal welfare. We did some stuff for their campaigns, but we had people from all over the world and this was really our first convergence.

James:

Yeah, it was really surprising when you say you guys are doing like activism today. So you guys like going to various targets of the campaigns where there's condé Nast or maybe some supermarkets or whatever, and you guys are just basically outside protesting the whole time and like, yeah, what does it look like? What are you actually doing in the day times?

Penny:

so yes, basically, um, we usually have like around three actions a day. Oh, wow, yeah, we'll go to, whether it's the store we protested Berluti a lot, so we'll be outside the store doing a protest. Or we did the Marriott campaign, we'll be outside of there protesting full force. We also do like disruption. Sometimes we go inside of the store or the building or whatever, and you can do that in America. I know every country they don't like the laws around disruptions are a little bit different. That's something we could do. As long as you know, we leave when we're asked.

James:

Yes, yes, I'm sure you do like very slowly just inching out the door.

Penny:

Oh, yeah, yeah we take our time, take a long way around the store to find the exit or whatever, and we also do for these spur campaigns. We've been utilizing the tactic of home demos sometimes, where we'll go to the homes of executives and protest outside of there, and that's been extremely effective for the convergence we've organized around the mark jacobs campaign. That was a tactic that we used that definitely helped to win the campaign that's exciting actually.

James:

maybe now listeners, I will try splice in some of the audio from some of the, some of the I guess the disruptions or the protests, and maybe the marriott campaign, or some of the audio from some of the I guess the disruptions or the protests, and maybe the Marriott campaign or some of the others, as like some illustrative example of what it's like and I guess the energy, maybe why Penny might be feeling tired after 20 days on the current one.

Speaker 3:

If you can't fulfill your promise to the happiness pension, this is what you can expect. This is what the customers of your hotel can expect I think.

James:

I guess that that leads like quite neatly, maybe. So you're on a tour right now. It's called the rage tour. Do you want to? To say more about, I guess, what the tour is? And I guess, like what you guys are doing, like what's the focus of this particular foreign campaign?

Penny:

So the RAGE tour is a joint effort between AAC and ICAW and CAFT and it's this tour that we put together along the East Coast of the US, similar to a Convergence. A Convergence is like we go to one city and we live in one house and do activism in this one city. The tour is just we're traveling and the goal with that is to meet, go into the communities. This is another thing that's made me realize, like just how important it is to like meet these people, meet these community in person and learn the culture of the specific activism community and to better connect with people. But basically we're hitting like key cities along the east coast and bringing our campaigns and our activism like to these cities and meeting the people in these cities and just doing work with them and showing them the campaigns and trying to like get them hyped about our campaign.

Penny:

The flip side to the convergences the convergences, you know come to this activism. The tour is like we're bringing the activism side to the convergences the convergences, you know, come to this activism. The tour is like we're bringing the activism like to you and your city and this is how it can fit into your community. I could tell you some cool stories from the tour, if you want please, please, please, go for it.

James:

okay, cool, actually wait, wait one thing before that. So, yeah, this is a collaboration between you guys, ikor and CAFT. Caft works on the fur trade, ikor is predominantly, I guess, on, I think, on like K3 eggs and shrimp. Yes, I think you guys are maybe a bit more broad. What's like the unifying thread that ties together the tour, like what are the different kinds of campaigns and targets that you guys will be hitting over this month?

Penny:

Yeah so CA campaigns and targets that you guys will be hitting over this month, yeah so capped is, you know, the coalition of oscar trade. They do like the best fur campaigns like the movement has ever seen. Honestly, they're extremely effective. And then I caught a new group and they're doing like fantastic demos for welfare, like the best demos for welfare like I have ever seen and I think that have ever been put on, if I would be so bold to say Some of the best at least. And then AAC our primary objective is movement building.

Penny:

So kind of the thought between all of us working together is ICAW has the welfare campaigns, the campaigns that make the impact for the most animals. Caft has the welfare campaigns, the campaigns that make the impact for the most animals. Caft has the fur campaigns, which are campaigns that the grassroots is just so excited about. We've seen more mobilization come out of fur campaigns than any other type of campaign and I think that's for a few reasons. It's definitely more like abolitionist rooted. It's rooted in this, like philosophy of being able to abolish the fur trade, so it has that draw for grassroots activists.

Penny:

Fur is also like a dying trend and we've just, I mean over the last like several years, cap to has seen an incredible amount of victories, most recently probably the biggest victory They've had more since the Marc Jacobs win. But when they beat Marc Jacobs in 2024, it was like the biggest, most influential American designer who went completely fur free and attributed his decision to activist pressure. And then AAC we're able to mobilize the grassroots like we've really built this network of just amazing dedicated activists, so we're like the movement mobilization force for both of these campaigns. Yeah, does that answer your question?

James:

yeah, no, no, it does. It's very helpful, I guess. Yeah, definitely we'll talk about the collaboration, but maybe, yeah, do you want to mention a few of these stories of like the tour?

Penny:

So, our first stop was in Boston and the first demo we did in Boston was for the Omni campaign. And the Omni campaign is actually like an AAC Duck Alliance campaign, if you know the organization Duck Alliance, and it is asking omni hotel and resorts to drop a graph from their 50 plus locations. And so there's a omni in boston and the locals have done some actions around that over the you know month campaigns been around. So that was our first action, typical action where you know screaming at the omni greatest loud, or chalk games like fake blood, or the whole nine yards, whatever great demo goes off without a hitch and we're like walking away and I we didn't really. There's a lot of locals that came out.

Penny:

I didn't get to say hey to everybody before the demo started. Some people like trickled in and I just standing next to this local who I didn't know and I was introducing myself and he's introducing himself and I'm like you know, you come to these often, you know this activism in general, and he's no, this is the first protest I've ever been to. I mean, we've done outreach but I he didn't even really know what the tour was. He's like I don't know any of you people. I need to meet you guys and get in with you.

Penny:

This is like the coolest thing I've ever been a part of that's awesome and yeah, we just ended up talking more and he joined our tour oh, wow yes, so he's been on the road with us. He had to step off for a little bit but he just joined. We're back in Charlotte right now and came back for that and he's going to finish out the tour with us. He went from never going to a protest to being so stoked about pressure campaigns. Then he joined this tour with a bunch of strangers being him for basically a whole month.

James:

Wow. Yeah, that is totally nuts and like you need to go from going from your first one to then basically doing it full time. It's just like, yeah, it's like your whole life for like several weeks. So that takes a pretty insane level of dedication shows. He must have been, yes, so inspired.

James:

So that is yes amazing that he could like just do that and was up for it yeah, definitely yeah, I think I wanted to ask you that you kind of hinted it before is like the, the collaboration between the different groups? Because I think I think it's pretty rare amongst in animal even nowadays at least, that there's like the really kind of like hard-hitting pressure campaigns.

James:

I like targeting, you know, people's houses or like supermarkets, whatever, whatever hotel chains and the kind of like it goes, like the welfare asks whether it's cage free and the stuff that icore is doing. And I'm kind of curious like how did this start? Because, yeah, often the kind of more welfare campaigning happens, it's more like digital, more online, like very small turnout or like not very grassroots. I'm going to curious like how this kind of yeah, partnership, like working together between icore and you guys, aac, started I'd have to say it all started very recently at this dc summit.

Penny:

So this summit that happened in washington dc back in march, it was organized by the simple heart like wayne chung's organization, and aac collaborated with it and CAF I can't remember if I called like actually on paper collaborated with it. Whatever they were there.

James:

Yeah.

Penny:

And a bunch of other groups were. So there was this summit, which was very like informational during the day and then not officially affiliated with the summit, but like after each day. Our three groups organized demos and this summit brought like a lot of people more, that more than come out to a convergence, like usually we get around like 50 to 70 out of convergence, and here they were like way over a hundred. So we were like all right, we gotta use this people power for the campaigns we organized. Aac organized an omni demo and, because there's an omni hotel in dc caft organized a fur protest. I can't remember exactly which one. They went to one of their I think it was laura piana, which is like one of their current campaign, but they mobilized, mobilized around their campaign.

Penny:

And icaw organized the marriott demo and icaw's was on the last day and everybody from icaw showed up to both caft and ac demos and they brought the irg. They were great and I got to meet chris, who's the ceo of I Ica, and some other people from Ica and they were just fantastic. They all have a wealth of knowledge. So it was great to talk to somebody who's been involved in campaigns for so long. And then they organized their Marriott demo and we brought all of our people to their demo and I did not know welfare demos could be not boring. That could be cool. It was great and it was literally just like I. If, at this point, you've spliced the audio and the podcast, uh, listeners are getting an idea for like how crazy our demos are yes, I've seen the mario stuff on instagram and it is pretty nuts, but like, but like this intensity.

James:

I mean, I agree that I've also been some protests that are like extremely tame and it's not very fun or exciting or like inspiring, but like and like, what do you think made these ones different? Like, was it because, like, the icore team themselves were there? Like like, was it like energy you guys brought? I'm curious, like, why these were different. Like and like how they were different.

Penny:

I think it's like a mixture of both. I mean, honestly, it's just like our people, like AAC and CAF, people are just gonna be like that. Every you know how they are like, I mean, unless they're like they're capable of listening to the organizers instructions or whatever, but we just they're so used to the energy 10 years ago, you promised to stop keeping chickens in the most extreme.

Penny:

All of our demos are crazy and high energy and I think the difference is that ICA is okay with these engaging demos and ones that are a bit more high energy and they understand and there are other welfare groups that are starting to be like this. But I call like, right out of the bat, understood the power of the grassroots and to animal liberation and you know the unique things that the grassroots is able to do. The grassroots doesn't answer to anybody. They don't have restrictions on them. It's literally just people. Icaw recognized that. We brought our people there and it was a demo that I can guess that Marriott still talks about today amongst the executives. It was just like very hard hitting and unlike anything that cage free has really seen, at least in the recent animal rights history. Yeah, so I caught being okay with these types of demos being put on and then, just like the AAC activists you know being able to like, bring the energy and being allowed to. And can you say more about?

James:

like the AAC activists, you know being able like bring the energy and being allowed to, and can you say more about, like the AAC activists? I guess, like when you first said something like oh, we're gonna do some work on cage free, like was there any initial kind of like skepticism or concerns or they're just like hell, yeah, this makes total sense, let's go for it like yeah, how did that initially land?

Penny:

it has been like a mixed reaction, but honestly I was prepared for way more pushback. Yeah, because we have touted ourselves as definitely.

Penny:

When we first started, we were explicitly like an abolitionist group yeah and we've definitely like attracted people that describe self-described abolitionists and I think that word is such like like just used incorrectly like people who you know it makes it seem like people who organize for welfare stuff don't want abolition don't want animal liberation yeah, which is not not true at all yeah so, yeah, I was definitely like expecting our people to heavily push back but honestly, it's been overwhelmingly like supportive and everybody has been just like after going to the demos and seeing that they're just like the demos they put on for everything else and you know now their friends, like me and other people who've been at ac for a while, are able to talk to them about welfare and talk to them about the actual difference it makes in these animal lot, in these animals lives and, like your number of animals that are helped and honestly, I think it has a lot to do with aac's push for pressure campaigning.

Penny:

Like captain, aac have really been laying the groundwork in the grassroots how effective pressure campaigning is and like, when I talk about this, I realized in the 90s and like early 2000s, pressure campaigning was extremely popular, but I'm more talking about 2016, you know, to 20, like 21 like when I first started getting involved in activism, pressure campaigning was not something that was in like the lexicon of animal rights, so we really had to lay that groundwork with the this crop of activists that exist now and about started around that time and pressure campaigning was not like super well received amongst everybody at that time and we still even now get pushback for pressure campaigning and saying that single, single issue campaigns are speciesist.

Penny:

But it was oh yeah oh my god, yeah, so we, we still get pushback from that, like people.

Penny:

I've recently talked with people who still tell me like I'm not doing pressure campaigns because they're single issue and, like all animals, deserve to be advocated for all the time in the same, that which is such an unhelpful way of looking at activism, in my opinion and like yeah really comes from this place of feeling morally superior, which has more to do with us, not even morally superior, but just more like morally congruent or something it has to do with, like how you feel as an activist more than what actually helps animals, like that kind of attitude what specifically do you refer to when you're saying pressure campaigns?

Penny:

so a pressure campaign is a campaign that has a specific ask of a company. Yeah, whether you're getting them to it usually has to do with getting them to like remove a product. You know, like all these fur pressure campaigns, it's getting a designer to drop fur from their line. It's something that is like actually doable.

James:

Yeah, concrete, and winnable Something.

Penny:

Yes.

James:

Okay Nice, and I guess I mean I totally agree. I'm excited about these kinds of campaigns as well, because you know I think it's come up in a couple of conversations I've had is like you know, winning is great. Winning is good for so many reasons. You know it's good to build momentum, people get excited, it draws more people in and I guess, yeah, how come? I guess you, or AAC, thinks pressure campaigning is such like a important thing that we should focus on as a movement?

Penny:

I just think anything that like wins for animals or tangibly move the needle forward for animals is what animals deserve yeah I know personally do it.

Penny:

I came up doing outreach. That was like how I got started in the animal rights movement, like so many of us had, and it was just so. I really sat back at the end of the day and after like years, I was like I don't know if I've made a single person vegan. Like I don't know, none of my family or friends have gone vegan. And all these people I have, these hundreds of people I've talked to over years, I don't know any of them. Like I can't keep up with them. I don't know if they went vegan. Like I have no way to know if I have made any change in their life. And that, to me, was just like I, like I. This is not what animals deserve for us to not be able to like know if we're helping them at all. Whereas pressure campaigning, it's like I now can 100 with confidence say that this store or this restaurant is no longer selling foie gras and they never will. And neither are these you know, 50 other restaurants that I've campaigned against, or this store's designers no longer working with fur, and these media outlets are writing about this designer and their influence of no longer working with fur, which is changing how other designers work and how fur is seen in the fashion world. It's just so tangible and something that we can really point to and I think that's the main draw for people, which was the thing that helped them get the welfare campaigns. Because you know that that, like I had a very similar journey with like welfarism.

Penny:

But once we get over that like mental block of this isn't what animals deserve and we like have to be like advocating for all of them, once you really look at it and are like I am making like actual, real change for millions of animals every single year, like now, if we win this cage free campaign, millions of animals who will no longer be locked in cages.

Penny:

For example, like mark jacobs, at the time when we were campaigning against them, did not sell fur. He'd recently used fur. Yeah, he recently used fur in like a collaboration in with another designer, and we you you know then use that opportunity to get them to announce the policy that was relevant, but that wasn't necessarily a satisfying ask. Same thing with these army locations. Like most army locations do not sell foie gras they have in the past but it's more about asking them to make commitment and a policy into the future. So it's not always super satisfying, but everybody understands like how this will tangibly help animals. So you know the activists are already on board with doing things that maybe don't feel super more like satisfying. Yeah.

James:

Yeah.

James:

But that do help animals. That is interesting. Yeah, it always seems like people. Yeah, I guess what they really want is maybe like some, like tangible signs of progress for animals and it's not like I mean I kind of share your opinion, which is like I don't think people are often like ideologically against like improvements on animals, welfare. They're like yes, this is a good thing and I agree like it's a bit misnomer to be like this is all the welfarists want. It's like it's like no way. It's like, if you go talk to people who work at these groups that do welfare campaigns, like most of them like well, at the end of animal farming at least.

James:

Like yeah factory farming like almost like 99% of the time. So it's like it's very similar goals. It's just how we get there. So I guess it's kind of quite reassuring to see that, you know people in the grassroots can get fired up about this stuff, because they also know, like you know, this is gonna make a huge improvement to loads of lives. And this is just like one step and like it's not where we start, but we just like we're just gonna keep going and keep going and keep going. So, yeah, I guess it feels inspiring that yeah, you guys are doing this and and like, how do you think we can see more of this kind of collaboration as a movement between like people like the aac and ipo, like, do you think let's go for more of this? And I was like, what would you recommend to people who do want great things like this?

Penny:

I hope we see more collaboration like this in the movement. I think this is so, so important. Disconnect doesn't just end with like abolitionist groups and welfare groups or whatever. There's just so much division in our movement and like writing people off and I think we're never gonna see like this type of collaboration if we don't start not writing people off and getting to know these organizations and the people involved in these organizations and their interests. Like I mentioned, I wasn't always a welfare supporter or whatever.

Penny:

I was very much like I came up through this, where abolitionist was like the good term and then welfarist was like the slur, almost.

Penny:

Like the bad, sir, and, honestly, what really did it for me personally was and this kind of sounds like a little bit dumb now that I say it out loud, but it was like the shrimp eye stock ablation footage. I just watched a clip of it because I like heard about those protests and I was like, okay, like shrimp, we're asking these companies to not like do this thing. That's what we're going to do, okay.

James:

Yeah, it's kind of weird.

Penny:

Then I watched the footage and I like it was like, for some reason it was really like gut wrenching. It was this like the shrimp getting like her, like the eyes cut off, and then she was like rubbing her like eye and yeah, it was like I'm kind of at this point where I've seen so much like animal suffering.

Penny:

It doesn't always like elicit this gut reaction in me, but for some reason I was just like like started tearing up and I was like this is, I don't know, this is if we can do something, if we can do something, if we can do a campaign. That makes it. And the reason they have their eyes cut off is because of this, this incorrect assumption that it helps them like lay more eggs.

Penny:

I'm like 99% sure that's why the practice exists and yeah, and it's like an incorrect thing, like it doesn't actually work, and also it's just like horrible mutilation, like having your eyes cut off, so like if we can do something that makes it so, some of the largest, like shrimp producers or distributors, don't source from this type of cruelty or do this type of cruelty like. Why would we not? You know?

Penny:

yeah for example, like the prison abolitionist movement, like the prison abolitionist movement is not like upset when better conditions for prisoners are secured. You know what I mean. Yeah, just because prisons are not abolished right now, you know, it doesn't mean that they're like. No, we don't want like GED programs for prisoners or we don't want better living conditions or better food or garden programs or whatever. You know we don't want it.

Penny:

We can't improve the lives of these prisoners at all until prisons are abolished like no other justice movement, things like that in a way, lots of them do think like that, which is kind of sad.

James:

But also I think, yeah, when you're going to drill down, like lots of movements do have this inherent tension. But I agree, like, if you ask people like should we have better conditions for you know? Like, or if like, have you know better benefits, people still be poor but like we're trying to, you know, maybe have universal health care or something, people like, oh no, it's not like ubi. Therefore, we don't want to people like, yes, like it's good to you know, have small wins and you can still be like asking for bigger stuff and fighting for bigger stuff. So, yeah, I mean I, I, you know, it's not one or the other.

Penny:

Yeah, that's a good point. Like the social justice movements, who do tend to think like that, I feel, are weaker, or at least it makes their positions weaker. Yeah, if we can get slowly there or actually we can't just like I don't know, like a logical fallacy, that's like we throw your hands up in the air and you're just like not going to do it because it's not absolutely perfect or something. Yeah, it like reminds me of that. I feel like I got away from the question of how we can work collaboratively.

James:

How do we have more of this? And actually, well, I guess something that like comes up from like what you said previously, maybe in terms of how we can do more of this, one is like you know, the very first thing you said, which is you know people, spending time together seemed like an important thing, is like you actually get to know other activists and know them as individuals. You know oh, actually you know that just like me, have similar beliefs when I help animals. And then maybe another bit that stood out for me was like some of the Icar people came down to the CAF protest, the AAC protest, so it wasn't like a oh, please do stuff with us and we won't support you. It was like no, we will first help out with your campaigns and come do whatever needs to be done, and then, if you want to join ours, that'd be great. Are those two of the things that you think worked in your opinion?

Penny:

Yes, having them actually come to our actions and support our stuff. And we also did our new york convergence. We did a couple actions for ica and yeah and, but it was mainly like fur and foie gras centered. But like all of the nearly all of the staff members at ica came to most of the some of them even came for the whole thing, the New York Convergence and they were like stoked that we were doing their actions and supporting their campaign. They actually came out to all of our stuff and I think that is super important, like having the leadership of these organizations coming out to the demos and giving the energy and having it be like.

Penny:

I think this is also like a strength of aac and ica and taff is that the people who run these organizations are at the demos and like meeting activists directly and working on their campaigns like collaboratively. I think I feel like I've seen in other like larger organizations it and I mean granted, like with big organization leadership cannot be like at every demo. So I'm not like saying that's, you know, a huge misstep or something, but it tends to create this divide of like when the people telling you to do the protest like aren't coming to the protest with you.

Penny:

It creates this relationship of this is my campaign and you, activists, are helping me with my campaign or my organization, my organization's campaign, and this is how you can help it yeah and I think something that ac and these other grassroots organizations do differently is we are with these activists like boots on the ground and this is our campaign and we are like equals in this and this is how we can work together, for like our campaign and giving people like autonomy in a campaign to do the type of demos that work with their community and fit better with their culture and with their activists.

Penny:

That gives people a huge sense of autonomy, which helps with so many things. It helps them take ownership in a campaign, they feel more connected to it, they're more likely to do demos with it and they're more likely to stick around in activism for a while. They feel like this is a campaign that I am super involved in and is mine as well. I'm not just following orders. I'm organizing and working on this campaign along with these people and we provide a lot of guidance for these people but we really try and empower them to like activists to have as much autonomy in a campaign as possible. And then also I think, yeah, like ICAW and the leadership and the team being at our actions in person and like doing it was super helpful and it helped our activists Like I worked, like the way I was describing like the activists saw the ICAW people being crazy and holding it down at the demo. And then they're like oh.

Penny:

I want to do these people's campaigns. You know, like they're with it.

James:

Yeah, yeah, they're cool.

Penny:

Yeah, yes.

James:

Nice, that is cool and yeah, I mean I totally agree on like the autonomy points you said to like get people to be like more personally invested in stuff, yeah. But yeah, I guess I'm curious like any more specifics on this concept.

Penny:

Kind of the cornerstone, like the flagship program in AIC was our mentorship program. So we have this like one-on-one mentorship program. We have our network of mentors, which is much bigger than what I described earlier. Now we have like over 50, like across the world, and anybody can apply to be a mentee. So if somebody wants guidance on how to do activism or a certain goal, they can apply through our program to become a mentee and then, through like their application, we select the best mentor for them and they get to work one-on-one with this experienced animal rights activist and they're going to help them achieve their goals. But even that program is like a very loosely structured program. It's really up to the mentor and the mentee to like set goals and you know like the mentor is literally just there to help facilitate the mentee and what they want to do and help guide them along the right path. We also put out free educational content. That's another like big program of ours. We think that that it's all like free on YouTube and on our website so it's accessible to anybody at any time. And then we have our convergences, which I feel like I've talked a lot about.

Penny:

Yeah, and then we also have a very new program that we've been like loosely doing but it's going to become like more formal, is our grassroots pressure campaign, like training program. So this program helps people, chapters and groups who sign up learn how to do hard hitting pressure campaigns. And that is another thing. That's very like case by case and takes into account the culture of the activist group there and the needs of the community and what laws for animals already exist. Or you know, maybe there's no restaurants that sell foie gras, so those campaigns are going to go, or maybe there's just another thing that's more pressing in the community that would be a good pressure campaign.

Penny:

So I think this concept of autonomy that we and more guidance that we try and have at AIC with our activists, it's not so much like we tell our people who run the graphs of training program and our mentors like, not so much like you telling activists what to do. It's just like guidance and trying to put them on the right path and like increase activist autonomy. I think that that's really what helps people. And with the Omni campaign too, this is our first like national campaign. With that we've really tried to work with local chapters to just we give them the guidelines what the campaign should look like contractors to just we give them the guidelines what the campaign should look like and it's kind of up to them. They can organize whatever they want they. A lot of times they don't tell us about it, which is fantastic we don't really want to know about a lot of it.

Penny:

You know what I mean. Here's the campaign. Here's like loose parameters. Go for it, nice, and that's really helpful. Yeah.

James:

So it seems like you guys are getting okay, this is like the overarching campaign that we're working on and like within that you guys have lots of autonomy, and like are people generally happy with that? Or do you hear complaints like oh no, I want to do a totally different campaign on like a totally different issue, and like are you also supportive of that? Or do you generally try to get people to plug into like one overarching campaign, whether it's like fur or foie gras or cage free?

Penny:

in my experience, activists are generally more appreciative of autonomy and we got to a degree. You know, when they have like the resources they feel like they need to succeed, that's kind of like the sweet spot. Like that we give them like guidance and resources and like a good foundation and then they're free to carry it out. I think that's like the thing that activists appreciate a lot. As far as, like other campaigns, we're generally supportive of whatever activists want to do and it's it's never really been like a huge problem maybe this happened a couple times but there are certain cities that are really crucial to certain like national campaigns. For instance, like New York, we don't really encourage and we don't really get the desire of activists to organize local campaigns. But you know, a city like New York is like the fashion capital of the US, so all of the first campaigns are like headquartered there and all the executives tend to live there. So that's where, like, the pressure needs to be for new york yeah and like time is like finite.

Penny:

So grassroots activists don't have the time to advocate for every single issue or take up local campaigns as well as doing all right, maybe some people do, but by and large, like the grassroots effort, you know their time. The activist time is finite. So putting like the importance on a national campaign in a certain city where it's like super important, this is generally like the way that we operate, but it hasn't ever really been like we've never had an issue or yeah, yeah, people, and people tend to get that every time.

Penny:

We will just explain this to them, like if somebody wants to start their own thing, we like hey, you are like the key to this national campaign. Like you and your activist group, we need you and that to do that. Then they're usually like yeah, because we all want the same thing that makes sense.

James:

It's like, honestly, yeah, I think people like feeling a sense of like bigger purpose, like being part of a bigger effort. So if you say, like you know, there's a nationwide campaign and you're playing a super important role in this key city, like you could do other stuff, but like it'd be great if you could, if you could do this thing, people like you know what. Maybe I should like help this bigger effort and I can, you know, be part of something larger. So, yeah, I think it's a nice balance of like you know, the autonomy is there if you really really want it. But also it's like it's nice also plug into this kind of a web of of change. You kind of said, like, if you give people like guidance and resources, what kind of guidance and resources are you are you giving people who want to do these local pressure campaigns?

Penny:

we don't. We definitely start by explaining to them what a pressure campaign is, what makes a good target, like target selection, how to do research, all the things that are foundational to starting a local pressure campaign. So we give them like the how-to, and I mean maybe some small stuff like signs and literature and support. Also, we have, like I mentioned, one of aac's biggest strong suits is like our grassroots network. So plugging a newer group in with the larger grassroots animal rights scene is so they can get the support and they can ask other activists and other cities for guidance and if they have an issue with, oh, the store owner that we're trying to get to drop for foie gras or whatever you know did this or they've said this, or they can seek resources from other activists. We also work closely with ALDP, which is an animal rights law group out of Denver University.

Penny:

It's all movement lawyers who help. They're a non-profit that basically helps activists when we get into legal trouble Not always legal trouble, but just legal questions. They're a resource that thankfully, we have not had to lean on an insane amount, especially with the local grassroots stuff. It's more with the national campaigns that we get into, like you know, an arrest might happen or something, but that's always there and I think that's a huge comfort for people. They have or have a legal question or something like that. We have that resource. Yeah, it's mainly just like giving them the knowledge and resources and talking through what makes a good campaign. The knowledge is not really out there like super readily available, and we also don't always want it to be, because we don't always want you know targets, to know what makes them a prime target.

James:

Yeah.

Penny:

It has to be a lot of this word of mouth stuff.

James:

Yeah, so maybe I should have asked this question earlier, because this is kind of underpins a bunch of our conversation. But and you kind of touched on it, well, why do you think the grassroots activism and getting the grassroots movement involved in, I guess, a variety of campaigns, why do you think that's particularly valuable as opposed to other bits of the animal advocacy movement?

Penny:

I really, really feel like the grassroots is like intrinsic to animal liberation. I think the grassroots have this great strength of answering to nobody but the animals great strength of answering to nobody but the animals and, like larger organizations, are definitely important and definitely have their place within the movement and they're also intrinsic to animal liberation. I think I don't think we'll be able to do it without, without them and their strength. The grassroots has been crucial in every other social justice movement. They've been able to do things that organizations that have like board members and shareholders and donors to answer to cannot do and will never be able to do, and that is such a strength of the grassroots, I think, like the civil rights movement and like the black liberation movement, we look at groups like the black panthers. They were a grassroots group and they were able to move the needle forward for those causes in ways that, like the larger, more well-funded organizations, never will be able to. They were able to. Other grassroots groups have been able to do crazier demos.

James:

I was going gonna say even something like you mentioned, home demos. I can't imagine most of the big groups that have like they're very risk averse with lawyers they're never gonna allow them, like they're like people, to do a home demos.

Penny:

I guess like that's like one very you know immediate thing, like you can just do more different tactics maybe more like pressure inducing tactics than other groups yeah, a hundred's like, exactly yeah, and what I'm talking about, like they're able in a grassroots or we're able to do, yeah, these demos that are just not.

Penny:

Other organizations are not allowed to do yeah, yeah and these harder hitting actions are so crucial and necessary for a campaign.

Penny:

Also, the grassroots has a strength in that we're like impossible to stamp out because it's not like we're not one person or one organization, we're not so tied up in the identity of one organization and that's another reason why we think autonomy and like a distributed organizing model is so important. And equipping people that's like a foundational principle that AAC was started on. Equipping people that's like a foundational principle that AAC was started on. We want to be able to teach everybody how to be an organizer and everybody how to put on demos of an extraordinary caliber. If that knowledge is isolated to five people, then these forces that oppress animals just take out those five people and either put them in prison or make them unable to do activism and the movement ends or at least stalls for years, which we can't afford. But if everybody has all this knowledge then it's going to be impossible to stamp out the movement. So that's like a huge strength of the grassroots and I think we've seen that across. Like social justice issues before, like disability rights, marriage, equality, civil rights and like literally every other social justice movement, the grassroots has been like integral and especially for getting like media attention yeah it's always these like weird scrappy actions that like these bigger orgs like less polished, like these bigger orgs like wouldn't even think of yeah, yeah

James:

might not have the ability to put on there's so much work that needs to be done. There's no way it could be done by like only paid ngo staff. So we kind of need like a huge, like volunteer army to be to be doing stuff, because, like there's just so many things about, you know, the animal agonistry that's like, that's like fucked up, but we need to change it and you know we can't pay for all of that. So it's like we just need people who just like, just like, just want to do it and just love doing it and just like. And also, if we believe that change, at least somewhat, happens because people believe something is wrong, then you need these people to be like empowered to go do stuff and like actually out there.

James:

So, yeah, I just think it's kind of a necessary part of any movement that's fighting for like pretty significant change yes, yeah, definitely can you say more about like how aac actually kind of does get a bunch of people to come to these convergences and, like you know, I think it's a big ask so to ask someone to come like for the whole month of august, like please come around the east coast of the us and like let's protest three times a day outside these bunch of venues. Like how do you guys actually get people to sign up and actually like how big is the tour and like the convergences normally as well?

Penny:

They vary in size but like average, like 50 ish people. Maybe at a demo we have 30 to 50 people, depending on the day, and then come a demo. Some people only come for a little bit of the conversion. This tour there's about eight to ten of us that are core, like traveling through the whole thing yeah and then I like explain we're picking up strays along the way so more people are joining and then some people join for like certain legs.

Penny:

um, we have a lot of those people, but yeah, averagely about 10, 12, 12, like at all times, and then the locals who come out for individual actions. But I think a big thing that draws people to the convergences is the community that we've created, the community of support with activism but also just like friendship. A lot of us feel like really isolated.

Penny:

I'll say specifically in the us, because we're so huge yeah there's in this our cities are pretty spread out, like our big cities are pretty spread out from one another. It can feel pretty isolating, even if you have a decently big community in your city of animal rights activists and maybe this isn't applicable to like the three major cities in the us but, like for everybody else, it just can be pretty isolating. You know, sometimes you can feel disconnected. Every group has their little like bickering things and drama that happens amongst one another, which can also feel very dividing.

Penny:

I mean, that's just like literally going to be the case with whatever any activist group, but these convergences you get the chance to come together with dozens and dozens of other grassroots activists from all across the world and I think our most recent convergence was like our 16th one that we've organized. So people have made friends that they've met at the convergences and like really strong relationships they've built with other communities. So this is usually sometimes, I know, for me personally, like friends I've met in the convergences, like I really only live across the US or in a different country. These convergences are the only time I see them. So there's that Most people who come to the convergences are like somewhat of leaders in their community, like they're usually like one of the head organizers at least, and, if they're not like full-time activists, they're dedicating like every ounce of their free time to activism that they have. Very few people in the world are willing to live that type of life and have that type of dedication, but at the convergences everyone there is like that.

James:

Yeah, yeah, that is cool.

Penny:

Yeah, yeah, you're meeting these people who are like as passionate about activism as you are and you're able to have these conversations and pick up things from other activists and like share struggles and tips. And convergences are really meant to feel like we're like building something together. You know like we sometimes like the day before, we'll sit down and make materials like signs or something, or we'll fold leaflets together, we cook together. We always have like roles at the convergences, like cleanup crew and the kitchen crew and the material collection. So we're like and it's just like random people who sign up. So you, yeah, yeah, you know, really feel like they're like doing this thing.

Penny:

You see all these people taking action, fritties, campaigns, which you get so much pushback for in your real life and maybe in your own community, you only have a group of two or three other activists that come out to your action. So people always leave the convergences like so inspired to go back to their community and take part in these campaigns or another thing we see every single convergence is people doing their like first, you know, first time, like someone doing a speak out on a megaphone or leading chants or doing a disruption for the first time or a protest Every Convergence, so many people, just because they're surrounded by so much community and support. And then they go back to their community super hyped up and with these skills.

James:

Nice.

Penny:

So, yeah, it's really such an incredible environment and it's like one of just such community and support. I feel like that's the biggest draw, certainly one of the biggest draws for me.

James:

If I wasn't organizing them, I would be at them definitely nothing is more appealing than just like having a really good time with people that like share similar values and like doing meaningful stuff in the meantime. So it seems like, yes, there's like this like great recipe of you know, it's fun. I was like this team bonding and like in a way, yeah, you're kind of pushing your comfort zone, but you're learning new stuff. I think we said it's super interesting. It's almost like you know to use a bad analogy it's almost like some like military boot camp. Right, you're going to get like, get these like special skills and you'll take back. Maybe you'll you'll teach more people and then like everyone's kind of upskilling and learning in the meantime, which is super cool. So, yeah, I mean it sounds very inspiring. I'm like should I should get, I should get over to one or maybe if you definitely should it sounds fun.

James:

It sounds very fun. You're right about the us. It's so big and dispersed. I guess you kind of need these to like pull people together. I guess in the uk we had these rebellions where I guess similar people would come down to London for like one or two weeks and it'd be like one or two weeks of mayhem. Sounds kind of similar. But I guess, yeah, you're right, maybe it's even more valuable in the US, where people are often more dispersed and isolated.

Penny:

So, yeah, it's interesting yeah, we definitely want to do some outside of the US and I don't mean to like segue, if you're gonna ask another question, but I'm actually gonna be in Europe for the entire next month, like the month of September, and part of what I'm doing there we're like I'm gonna be like attending some conferences and putting on like some demos and meeting activists in like various cities like I'll be in like london and paris and amsterdam and some other cities berlin, nice, there's some other ones so like I really want to meet the community over there and I'm going to reconnect with some people who came to the new york convergence and now I'm going to go to their city and do activism like with them, which I'm really excited about. But yeah, I think next year we're definitely going to organize. I don't want to say definitely, but we really want to organize a.

Penny:

Paris conversion oh cool yeah. Every year, in collaboration with the CAP campaigns against LVMH, some activists put together a week of action around the annual shareholder meeting in Paris for LVMH. So I think we want to organize that next year and that's something we're going to work out. But we really want to break out of the US too. I've just personally never been out of the US, which is crazy.

Penny:

This will be my first time going to Europe and meeting all these people and activist groups, which is so exciting. So maybe next year there will be a non-US convergence, which they need to definitely come out.

James:

That's exciting. Paris is only a short train away from where I am, you'll be there that sounds fun. Okay, so moving on to our closing questions, what's one bit of animal related news that you're grateful to hear recently?

Penny:

I actually feel like really excited about a lot.

Penny:

I feel like there have been so many good wins. Since we won mark jacobs in 2024, I think there have been like four major wins that capta secured for animals and there have also been like little pieces of fur legislation that have been passed around the US, like fur bans, and I think it was for four major brands that also encompass like a bunch of other little brands Like you know fashion houses or parent companies. They've gone for free in the last year, which is fantastic. I feel like that is like such a dying industry and CAFT is a great organization working with that last year, which is fantastic. I feel like that is like such a dying industry and caft is like a great organization working with that, but then also just like local people passing legislation in the us. The podcast called how I learned to love shrimp and we talked a little bit about shrimp, so I gotta mention the shrimp wins that's right this big, the uk retailer iflins they I caught the UK retailer Eifelins ICAW just had a massive win with them.

Penny:

I mean a lot of other groups I'm sure. They committed to quitting the eye stalk ablation and that's, however, many hundreds of millions of shrimp every single year. Affected by that, I mean AAC is also. I feel like we've been like winning an insane amount this past year. We've helped more grassroots groups than ever before. I think in the last two years these numbers numbers not like exactly right, but I feel like it's definitely averagely right.

Penny:

There's been like a hundred restaurants that have dropped foie gras. Like yeah, and most of them have foie gras free policies saying that they're never going to put it back on their menu. And that is all. Just your local people, you know, screaming at a restaurant or sometimes just emailing them and asking them to drop, and that's over the last two years. That's another dying industry. That's sure to go soon, at least in the us, I know, like in france, uh, it's gonna be like a harder battle, but in the us there's only like really two farms that still do it. And and then maybe one more win, if I can keep talking yeah, well, it's good.

James:

It's good, lots of wins.

Penny:

It's nice to be inspired sometimes, otherwise it feels a bit bleak out there yeah, exactly, I know we talked a lot about the collaboration with like more abolitionists and welfare groups and whatever. I just feel like really excited about that yeah I attended animal equalities like week-ish of action that they had in chicago.

Penny:

I didn't go for the whole thing oh nice but I was able to go for a little bit and their demos were just like extremely exciting. They look just like stuff that like we would put on and cap would put on. They were just great and I really feel like the welfare space is really like understanding like the importance of these hard hitting demos more and I feel like feel like you know, we saw so many of our people attend. I feel like most of the people that were at that event were like aac activists, which is great because it was like entirely welfare stop and everyone was stoked on it.

Penny:

so, yeah, that I just feel really hopeful about the intersections between welfare and grassroots and how those are becoming like more intrinsically linked and I just feel like that's going to result in so many more wins for animals. And part of my journey in Europe is going to be helping mobilize for another shrimp campaign and, hopefully, a shrimp win, and that's going to come at like the end of my trip. So I'm hoping to get you know a lot of people out there for the shrimp campaigns and hopefully, you know, get that more going in europe like those two intersections, so yeah that is cool.

James:

I mean, it's a. It's a good place to be. It's a good problem to have to have lots of things that are are going well and, yeah, a hundred restaurants that have either dropped foie gras have a policy to not serve. It is like amazing. So, yeah, that's yeah, credit to all you guys as well. Thank you. Do you have any media recommendations for listeners could be books, podcasts, articles or anything that either has been inspirational for you as you or you personally couple of books that like immediately come to mind.

Penny:

This is an uprising, fantastic book. I feel like that's probably over-recommended, but I liked it too. There's a book I read really recently called the Confidence Code. It's specifically geared towards women and like the confidence gap of men and women, but anybody can find it helpful and I feel like, especially as grassroots activists or even somebody like leading more like corporate campaigns where, like, your confidence is like so important the success of what you're doing I feel like that book I cannot remember the author probably should have wrote that down. It's a a great book. I highly recommend it. I also recommend the animal liberation hour Fantastic podcast.

James:

It's a good podcast. So who, who? Who runs this podcast? Penny.

Penny:

Well, we do. I see it's our podcast. It's great. It's an, it's another, it's an interview style podcast and we interview influential animal rights activists from like all over the world. That's really one where we try and like, get as like as a diverse crowd of animal rights activists doing tons of different stuff, you know, from like legislation to sanctuary work, uh, pressure campaigns to direct action just tons of activists and interviews. So definitely recommend that. It's just fun to listen to nice.

James:

And finally, how can people get more involved with your work, how can they follow you or follow acc, and how can they get on board if they want to?

Penny:

well, I think we're animal activism collective, like everywhere. We have facebook, youtube. All of our educational content that I mentioned is like archived on our YouTube, so we have like over a hundred workshops and live streams and stuff you can check out.

James:

That's cool.

Penny:

Yeah, and that's really something we're hoping to like put more attention to in the next year is our educational content. You can sign up for our mentorship program if you are an aspiring activist or if you're somebody looking to sharpen a certain skill in activism. We have mentors that are like proficient in a lot of different types of activism that we'd love to connect you with. So you can apply on our website, animalactivismcollectivecom, and there's like a button that says become a mentee right on the homepage. Grassroots pressure campaign training program isn't like officially launched yet at the time that I am reporting this, but maybe at the time that it's posted I'm not sure the turnaround time it will be launched and then that you can sign up on our website too if you have any, if anybody has any like questions about anything. But you don't want to be a mentee but you want to get more insight about activism, you can reach out to us like on instagram or through our email, like it's just contact at animal activism collectivecom or I think we have join at animal activism collectivecom.

James:

but yeah, we're always happy to field any questions about activism yeah, but I think definitely the website seems valuable if people want to either become a, become a mentee or just hear more about what you guys are doing and find your other socials and stuff. That's it for me, so I guess. Thanks so much, penny, for I guess, all the amazing work you're doing and taking time out this busy rage tour and hopefully you guys can get some sleep before you guys mess up some more companies.

Penny:

But yeah, thanks for all that you do, and thanks for coming on thank you, yeah, and thanks for having me on and letting me talk about all this stuff that I'd love to talk about. I appreciate all the work that you do, so, yeah, it was a pleasure.