Wildlife Conservation Sweden Project #26550

Help raise awareness about animal rights in Sweden

by Djurens Ratt

Project Report | Jul 10, 2023
A warm hello from the middle of our summer tour 2023!

By Caroline Gripenberg | Tour Coach

Our summer tour is made possible by all our fantastic volunteers as well as this year's tour coaches Alfred, Fanny and Caroline. Here is a special greeting from the field from Caroline!

Hello!

We are now half way through our summer tour, and have visited festivals and other places such as Rosendal Garden Party, Lollapalooza, Jubileumsfestivalen, West pride, Linköping, Uppsala and Almedalsveckan in Visby, and there is a lot more to come. We have so far welcomed over three hunded new members to Djurens Rätt. We are so happy and pleased to know there are many people out there who, same as us, stand alongside our fellow animal friends and want to create a better world for them.

What we do on our summer tour

The focus of the tour this year is to raise awareness and create change for the chickens suffering in factory farms, and some of the activities we use are:

speaking with people about the situation for chickens and the suffering they endure
encouraging people to eat plant-based and giving them flyers with recipes
handing out flyers with a QR-code to scan to do a quiz with questions about chickens in Sweden, and the chance to win a book
visitors can get temporary tattoos with important animal-rights statements
children can play the game "guess the pawprint", which is very popular

Something special that we bring on the tour this year is our truck, where we have created a demonstration of a typical broiler chicken farm for visitors to experience. The inside of the truck is decorated to mimic a chicken factory with crowding, loud noise, dirty surfaces, strong smells and dim lighting. Here, the visitors can experience what it is like to be a chicken with their senses; smell, sight and sound. This has made many visitors curious to visit the truck.

The feedback and reactions after visiting the truck have been divided. Some visitors are crying tears of empathy, some say surprised: "but this cannot be in Sweden, right"? Most visitors agree that it is absolutely awful that we treat chickens this way in Sweden and that this needs to change - now!

In this report is a link to a video with some reactions from visitors.

Beautiful interactions with the public during our summer-tour

During the tour, we have had thousands of beautiful and rewarding conversations on the topic of animal rights with bypassing visitors.

Here are some examples:

many can not believe that we have something called "broilers" in Sweden 2023; were chickens live on top of each other in their own feces without getting their basic needs met, are slaughtered at a really young age and transported to the slaughterhouse in horrific conditions
many visitors are pleased to hear that Djurens Rätt work to create change for animals by having important dialogues with politicians as well as big companies to change laws and regulations and end animal cruelty. We need to change all industries where humans exploit animals, such as factory farms, the fur industry and animal testing.
visitors are very happy to receive recipes and advice on how to adopt an animal-friendly diet. A few of our visitors are wanting to go plant-based but say "they are not really there yet" and believe it is very important that people with the power are making regulations. I got the important comment from one visitor saying: "It is time for a minister of animal welfare".

We are also extremely happy to meet people who are already members of Djurens Rätt and other animal friends, where they give us a thumbs up or make a beautiful comment about the work we do and the fact that we are doing this summer tour. I have even gotten a hug or two. <3

Proud to be a part of the tour

Unfortunately there are sometimes negative comments from visitors about how good meat tastes. But, with providing the correct knowledge and having a loving conversation, these people have actually gotten inspired to live a more animal friendly life and comment back: "you know what, I am going to cut down on eating meat". This shows how important it is to spread awareness about animal rights to the public and having a summer tour like this is a fantastic way of meeting them.

I could not be more proud of being a part of this tour. Being halfway in, I now know how many people out there want animals to have a better, safer and healthier life. I, on behalf of the team in our summer tour, are looking forward to keep on sharing information and knowledge about animal rights to the public. We now have events such as Stockholm pride, Open-air cinema, Malmöfestivalen, Nytorgsfesten - and many more places to visit- around the corner.

It is thanks to all our members and supporters that we are able to make this happen. We are one big family who want to share the world with our animal friends alongside us, and not having them exploited by humans. Together we can make changes for a more animal friendly world. Our summer tour has convinced me of this more than ever before.

Thank you for your support!

Links:

Reaction video of the truck (in Swedish)

Back to all project reports

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.