Animal Aid, founded in 1977, is a British animal rights organisation. The group campaigns peacefully against all forms of animal abuse and promotes a cruelty-free lifestyle. It also investigates and exposes animal cruelty.
Animal Aid produces campaign reports, leaflets and factfiles, as well as educational and undercover videos. They also offer a quarterly magazine, a regular campaigners' bulletin, and a sales catalogue with cruelty-free products.
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Aims and objectives
Animal Aid was founded in January 1977 to work, by all peaceful means, for an end to animal cruelty. The organization is a not-for-profit limited company run by a volunteer council of management. It is denied charitable status because part of its work involves campaigning for changes in the law concerning animal protection. Its aims are:
- To increase public awareness of the abuse of animals in our society, particularly in vivisection laboratories and factory farms and to educate public opinion to demand, by all lawful means, the abolition of all experiments on animals, factory farming and all other forms of animal abuse.
- To examine existing legislation on matters associated with the above objectives or related aspects and to promote social, legal and administrative reforms in furtherance of the above objectives.
- To prevent exploitation of animals.
- To educate the public and particularly young people to a sense of moral responsibility towards animals.
- To promote, generally, a lifestyle which does not involve the abuse of animals.
- To collect, and diffuse among members and the public generally, information on all matters affecting the above objectives and with a view there to print, issue and circulate papers, periodicals, books, circulars and other literary matter and produce film and audio-visual material, and to promote, sponsor, procure or assist in any way, courses or lectures or other instructions in furtherance of such objectives. [1]
Celebrity supporters
Animal Aid has a wide range of celebrity supporters, including Thom Yorke, Jilly Cooper, Simon Cowell, Annette Crosbie, Alan Davies, Stella McCartney, Richard Wilson, Wendy Turner Webster and Massive Attack.
Dr Charlotte Uhlenbroek, the primatologist, has supported the Animal Aid campaign against primate experiments , stating: "I have yet to hear a sufficiently compelling scientific argument that justifies the suffering inflicted on primates in medical research." [1]
Mad Science Awards
Since 1997, Animal Aid has produced an annual "Mad Science Awards" ceremony, where it highlights "pointless and grotesque scientific research", awarding the "winners" a statue of a beagle being stabbed with a scalpel. The pro-animal research group Seriously Ill for Medical Research describes Animal Aid as "renowned by the scientific community for its lack of relevant knowledge, information, experience or expertise," and labels the Mad Science Awards "[an] ill-informed critique of medical research".[citation needed]
Christmas Without Cruelty Fayre
Christmas Without Cruelty Fayre is an event, organised by Animal Aid, that is held every year in London, England to promote a cruelty-free lifestyle.
There are goods for sale including fair trade crafts and jewellery, cruelty-free cosmetics, recycled goods, environmentally friendly clothing, non-leather boots and shoes and seasonal cards and gifts. The 2004 fayre hosted more than 60 stands selling cruelty-free gifts. There is a lecture programme throughout the day, plus a celebrity auction, and vegan buffets and cakes. It is promoted as a family event.
As of 2007, there is also a South West Christmas Without Cruelty Fayre held in Exeter, England.
See also
- Hillside Animal Sanctuary (in the UK)
References
- ^ Cambridge Primate Labs AnimalAid.org.uk
External links
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