The Animal Rights Activism Committee (ARAC) is proud to host this public webinar with our co-founder Bina Ahmad and founder and Executive Director of Food Empowerment Project (FEP) lauren Ornelas!
Please RSVP on Facebook to get updates, including the webinar link which will be made available closer to the date.
This webinar will highlight FEP’s groundbreaking work and activism in food justice, FEP’s focus on cross movement solidarity, and how lauren Ornelas inspired much of ARAC’s politics viewing food justice through an intersectional lens, including ARAC’s Food Justice Guidelines.
SPEAKER BIOS:
lauren Ornelas is the founder/director of Food Empowerment Project (FEP), a vegan food justice nonprofit seeking to create a more just world by helping consumers recognize the power of their food choices. lauren has been active in the animal rights movement for more than 30 years. She is the former executive director of Viva!USA, a national nonprofit vegan advocacy organization that Viva!UK asked her to start in 1999 and for which she investigated factory farms and ran consumer campaigns. In cooperation with activists across the country, she persuaded Trader Joe’s to stop selling all duck meat and achieved corporate changes within Whole Foods Market, Pier 1 Imports, and others, and she helped halt the construction of an industrial dairy operation in California. She was also the spark that got the founder of Whole Foods Market to become a vegan. In addition, lauren served as campaign director with the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition for six years. Watch her TEDx talk on “The Power of Our Food Choices.” Learn more about FEP’s work at foodispower.org and veganmexicanfood.com.
Bina Ahmad is a social justice attorney, and has worked with numerous animal rights and human rights organizations. She lived and worked in Palestine with Al-Haq, served on the legal team for the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, was a legal consultant to Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights as well as the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Palestine Division. She currently serves on the Steering Committee of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, as well the advisory board of the Food Empowerment Project, and the ARAC advisory board, which she co founded. She conducts Know Your Rights trainings for radical left movements and state targeted communities. She currently works as a public defender in Manhattan, New York.