Vegan Activists Need to See This... Introducing We The Free (WTF Activism)

if you're an animal rights activist you're going to want to hear this hey my name's bridget and i'm really excited to share some news with you that i'm pretty sure you'll find interesting i'm part of a global team of activists who conducted the largest animal rights activism survey ever we surveyed over a thousand activists and organizers from around the world and over the next few minutes i'm going to share some of the good news and some not so good news with you from our global community let's

start with the not so good news sadly we're losing activists a lot of them we learned that at least one-third of activists significantly reduce or completely stop their activism after only two years this is a pretty big problem because the animals need every one of us and the activists we're losing are some of the most experienced and skilled there are three main reasons for this first our prolonged exposure to violence and trauma often leads to emotional fatigue and burnout second many people

abandon activism not because of pressure from industries that harm animals but because of infighting and toxic communication from other people who are supposed to be defending them and third many activists reported a perceived lack of meaningful impact not knowing if the work we're doing is making a big enough difference can be pretty demotivating over time on top of all this only half of all activists worldwide currently feel that leaders in the movement are effectively inspiring and retaining

activists let's think about that for a second half of all the people defending animals don't have confidence in the people leading organizations or planning events that's a pretty big challenge for our movement now part of the reason for this may be that only 10 percent of organizers reported receiving training that supports their development and effectiveness as leaders so if 9 out of 10 organizers are not equipped with the necessary skills and tools to manage conflict gather feedback and inspi

re and grow their groups this is clearly something that should be addressed the last shocking piece of feedback we received is that not one single activist anywhere in the world reported knowing whether or not their activism is having any positive impact literally none of us know for sure if our work is regularly inspiring others to take steps towards going vegan collectively we invest a lot of time money and resources defending animals but up until now grassroots animal rights organizations and

activists don't actually have any useful data to show us whether or not what we're doing is making a difference okay now for the good news like with any problem the first piece of good news is that thanks to this extensive survey we now know that these serious problems exist and we can begin tackling them the second piece of good news is that a team of people from around the world have been working hard to address these problems for the last year and a half and have developed solutions that wil

l significantly increase our effectiveness as activists and as a movement we were able to break down all of the feedback we received into three main categories impact training and culture so let's start with impact when we have no idea if the work we're doing is impactful it's no surprise that over time many activists feel demotivated and end up burning out now imagine knowing specifically what actions people took toward going vegan after you spoke with them or after seeing a post of yours on so

cial media over the past two years we conceptualized and built the animal rights movement's first data and analytics platform that tells you what actions people have taken as a result of your activism with my stats you'll be able to see exactly how many people you have personally inspired through your online or in-person activism to watch vegan documentaries sign up for a vegan challenge and even see how many people reported going vegan my stats is live now and it's available for any animal righ

ts activist to use for free to learn how easy it is to use and to sign up for your personal account visit www.mystats.wtf simply share your custom link with people and my stats will show you exactly what actions they took after being inspired by you how awesome is that not only will this allow each one of us to try different approaches and see which ones inspire the greatest number of people to go vegan it will also help animal rights organizations make strategic decisions about the impact of di

fferent campaigns and how to best spend donation dollars to maximize their impact the second general category is culture as a reminder way too many people are leaving the animal rights movement because of burnout toxic communication and a lack of faith and leadership so here's how our team is addressing these challenges we know that we can't do our best for the animals if we don't take care of ourselves it's like that airline cliche of putting on your own oxygen mask before helping others we rec

ognize that community building is a vital part of helping animals and we prioritize building strong supportive and resilient communities that people are excited to be a part of we also regularly host community events such as sanctuary volunteering park cleanups and collaborations with the other groups in the community this helps us build friendships recharge our batteries support other worthy causes and attract potential new activists as part of we the freeze team we recognize that we can't poss

ibly have all the answers and so all our local groups are empowered to make their own decisions about most things from different event formats and the type of footage shown to marketing materials and dress code while most organizations typically place founders and directors at the top of a hierarchy of leadership we flip this hierarchy on its head with we the free you make your own decisions about how to best help animals and we'll support you with the tools and resources to make it happen all o

f this combined with our organizational values makes our global community something worth being a part of the last category is training given the obvious training gap communicated by activists around the world we the free now offers professional level training for all volunteers and organizers training includes inspiring behavior change sustainable activism non-violence conflict resolution and much more every training offered by we the free and our learning partners is fully accessible to the en

tire movement free of charge to wrap up this video i'd love to share with you how excited i am to be part of the we the free team or wtf for short we chose the name we the free because we believe that those of us who are free have a moral duty to defend those who have had their freedom unjustly stolen from them of course we also like the acronym wtf because it represents most people's reactions when they first learn about the legal and standard practices of the animal agriculture industry our te

ams hold regular events in the streets called wtf diamonds created by activists coming together and displaying footage from farms and slaughterhouses showing these images to the public is a powerful way to begin inspiring conversations about veganism we currently have 17 teams across the uk and canada and so far we have received amazing feedback from our organizers and volunteers as of november 1st we have officially launched globally and have ambitious plans to start new we the free chapters al

l over the world and reach as many non-vegans as possible with our strong animal rights message to do this we need your help if you're as excited about my stats and we the free as i am here's how you can get started first let other activists know share this video on your social media accounts and go into the comments right now and tag any activist who you think would want to measure their impact also let us know in the comments what you think about being able to understand the impact of your act

ivism second sign up for my stats to start measuring your impact for animals you can start today create a custom url for your online activism and add it to your facebook posts youtube videos instagram bio and anywhere else you share vegan resources and finally if you like the sound of we the freeze activism teams join one today or start your own by going to our website and visiting the get involved section the link is in the description of this video and in our social media bios thank you so muc

h for watching it's an honor for me to defend animals alongside you both in the streets and online on behalf of we the free much love and thank you for everything you do for the animals you