Animal Liberation Conference

We are thrilled to share our first round of workshop trainer announcements for the Animal Liberation Conference! These powerful leaders in the animal rights movement joining us this year at the #ALC2023 will be: Dr. Melanie Joy, Ryuji Chua, Eva Hamer, Fernanda García-Naranjo Ortega, David Michelson, Rachel Ziegler, Brittany Michelson, Wilson Wong, and many more to be announced soon!

These are just a few of the impactful trainings that will be offered at ALC:

Melanie Joy’s workshop, How to Prevent and Manage Infighting, teaches the causes and consequences of infighting, and ways to manage and prevent it. This unique and empowering workshop can help activists cultivate more resilient organizations and a more impactful movement.
Melanie, PhD, EdM is a psychologist, educator, and author specializing in effective advocacy, social change, relationships, and communication. She’s given trainings to vegan advocates for nearly two decades, on six continents. She’s also the award-winning author of seven books, including Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows, and she's the founding president of the NGO Beyond Carnism.

Ryuji Chua’s workshop, How to Talk about Animal Rights: Principles of Effective Communication for Educators & Content Creators, will discuss principles for creating media, how to earn people’s attention, keep it, and how to offer them an alternative perspective on the world in an engaging and memorable way.
Ryuji is a filmmaker and animal advocate focused on challenging how we think about and treat animals through education. He’s been a guest speaker at schools like the University of Warwick and the University of Chicago, produced videos for animal rights organizations like Surge, Sentient Media and Faunalytics, and was featured on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah to talk about animal ethics and his independent documentary “How Conscious Can a Fish Be?”

Eva Hamer’s workshop, Strategic Framing for Movement Messages, is about overcoming futility and responding to objections with empathy, evidenced-based use of emotion, and some of the specific messages that perform the best.
Eva is cofounder of Pax Fauna, an organization that exists to design a more effective social movement for animal freedom in the U.S., using original research as well as careful study of social movement literature and the recent history of the animal movement, in order to reverse the cultural norm of eating animals. She is a dedicated student of Nonviolent Communication committed to bringing NVC’s repertoire of creative problem-solving tools to the work of building a better culture in the animal movement. Working for years as a music therapist in hospice taught Eva how to apply metrics to aspects of life that are difficult to measure- and how to judge when metrics aren’t working to tell the whole story.

Fernanda García-Naranjo Ortega’s workshop, The Beginning of a Forever Bond: Tools for Before, During and After the Rescue of Animals, will provide you with basic and holistic tools to consider before, during and after helping an animal in a vulnerable situation. 
Fernanda is the co-founder and Executive Director of Granjita TyH, an animal sanctuary in the State of Mexico. She is also Grant Advisor for The Pollination Project Animal Rights & Welfare panel and member of the Anti-speciesist Vegans Network.  She’s a passionate animal rescuer and intersectional feminist and was recently recognized as Citizen of the Year in the State of Mexico.

David Michelson’s workshop, Forcing The Vote: How to Bring Animal Liberation to the Ballot Box, will provide activists with a roadmap for crafting citizen-initiated legislation and building grassroots ballot measure campaigns that push the animal rights movement forward.
David is a Chief Petitioner for IP3, a proposed ballot measure for the Oregon 2024 General Election seeking to criminalize the killing, confinement, and insemination of animals statewide.

Rachel Ziegler’s workshop, How to be an Effective Police Liaison and Cyber Security, will teach you how to keep our community safe by keeping your electronic devices secure and skillfully engaging with law enforcement using de-escalation and negotiation tactics.
Rachel is a full time photographer and has been involved with DxE since 2014 when she started a chapter in Pennsylvania before moving to CA to get more involved. She’s gotten arrested for civil disobedience with DxE almost a dozen times and uses that experience to lead trainings that will help others who want to do civil disobedience too.

Brittany Michelson’s workshop, Pressure Campaigns: Making Lasting Change for Animals, teaches us how to run pressure campaigns focusing on three phases of the process: starting the campaign, building the campaign, and winning the campaign, and will address the five elements: Goal, Target, Strategy, Tactics, and Vision.
Brittany is the Captive Animals Campaigner for In Defense of Animals where she leads campaigns using a variety of approaches. She is also the author/ editor of the anthology Voices for Animal Liberation and the founder of Desert Oasis Turtle & Tortoise Sanctuary in Tucson, Arizona. She is a former organizer for DxE Los Angeles and a former teacher.

Wilson Wong’s workshop, Disrupt Creativity: Cultivating a Fertile Environment for Sprouting Novel Ideas, you’ll learn tools and processes to break out of the box, such as leveraging the two modes of learning, stealing like an artist, and making imposter syndrome your superpower.
Wilson is the longest serving member and organizer of the DxE Creative group. From campaign webpages, logos to banners - he's had a major hand in crafting the early visual identity of DxE. Before that, Wilson started the first and, at that time, largest international chapter (DxE Vancouver). Wilson has no formal design training. During business hours, he is a material scientist and experimentalist at a 3d printing company, specializing in designing 3d printed structures for cushioning and impact protection. In his spare time, Wilson rides with the Cage-Free Vegans - a local vegan motorcycle gang and the Bay Area's finest source of organ donors.