Stopping the Yulin Dog Meat Festival - time for a new approach
From All-Creatures.org Animal Rights Activism Articles Archive

FROM

ACTAsia
June 2015

dog meat

Shouting and screaming at China, although understandable, is unlikely to change behavior...

ACTAsia’s campaign to stop the Yulin Dog Meat Festival is radically different this year - we already know that you don’t need persuading how awful the festival is. There are no shocking images and it doesn’t dwell on the horror we’ve seen before. Please watch and share this film to help us make this festival a thing of the past.

Watch Stopping the Yulin Dog Meat festival - time for a new approach (not graphic, we promise).

Like you, ACTAsia has campaigned and protested against the Yulin Dog Meat Festival year after year. While we’ve helped save some dogs, we know they were simply replaced on the menu with other less fortunate animals. There hasn’t been any reduction in the number of dogs inhumanely killed each year – 10,000 dogs are still eaten every June over the Summer Solstice. So we’ve refocused our approach.

In China, the word for animal means ‘moving object’. Most Chinese people think that animals don’t feel physical or emotional pain – they aren’t seen as sentient beings. With this yawning gulf in attitudes, criticising cruelty in China is like preaching in a foreign language. Our challenge is to change behaviour by influencing the way people think about animals.

That’s why we’re concentrating on schools, teaching and young people, so we can sow the seeds of empathy and compassion for the next generation. ACTAsia’s education programme is taking the cause of animal welfare right back to basics. We understand you might be frustrated that we can’t stop the cruelty straight away, but we’re certain that education is the only way forward.

$10 can equip a teacher in China with the tools and motivation to bring humane education into the classroom. We are confident that children who grow up with compassion will become adults who want to stop the cruelty themselves, within China.

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