ANIMAL JUSTICE ACADEMY LUNCHTIME LIVE:
The Importance of Activist Gathering Places
with Sue Spahr, Almira Tanner, & Zehra Abbas

In this AJA Lunchtime Live, we'll be talking to three stellar individuals about the unique gathering spaces they've helped to create for animal rights advocates....

• Zehra Abbas will talk about Studio 89 – a vegan cafe and intersectional nonprofit community hub operating for 8 years providing a free space for events, workshops, and resources in Mississauga, Ontario.
• Almira Tanner will give us the rundown on Direct Action Everywhere's Berkeley Animal Rights Center – the first community center for animal rights in the U.S.
• Sue Spahr will tell us about the launch of the Wishbone Animal Rights Lab in Toronto – a space dedicated to facilitating and nurturing the artistic talents and innovative ideas of animal/planet advocates.

We’ll look at the different models of activist gathering places and the vital ingredients these initiatives are adding to the AR movement. Our guests will also provide some guidance for anyone in other parts of the world interested in creating activist community spaces where you are.

*We invite folks to have their video on during this event to enhance the sense of community, but it’s not mandatory

About Our Guests: 

Zehra Abbas has had a keen interest in exploring how to make the world a kinder and more empathic place since her time volunteering for organizations like War Against Rape and The Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture in her youth. Zehra is the founder and volunteer president of a non profit social enterprise, Studio.89, a fair trade, vegan cafe and community hub providing a free space for events, workshops, and resources with a specific focus on social justice activism and youth leadership development. Studio.89 also aims to benefit humans, animals, and the environment with their community programs that support marginalized communities.

Zehra has experience in operating and developing non profit initiatives, building organizational capacity, and establishing social enterprises. Her newest volunteer endeavour is a non profit called Green Islam which strives to highlight the incompatibility between modern consumption and lifestyle practices with Islamic teachings, in turn seeking to inspire Muslims to re-engage and act in accordance with the ethical spirit of Islam.

While traveling, Zehra enjoys narrow cobblestone streets, ancient architecture, cuddling street animals, and volunteering with various charity organizations to advance her knowledge about community care from a holistic lens.

Almira Tanner is the lead organizer of Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), a grassroots network of animal rights activists working to achieve revolutionary social and political change for animals in one generation. She started organizing with DxE in 2014 in her hometown of Vancouver, Canada, made the leap to California in 2016, and has held this elected position since 2019.

In this role, Almira oversees a team of a dozen full-time organizers and hundreds of volunteers, provides strategic guidance for DxE campaigns, trains and mentors activists, and leads their fundraising team. Given the grassroots nature of DxE's work, she's essentially done it all: from lobbying and leading legislative campaigns to writing press releases, speaking to the media, organizing protests, coordinating legal cases, community building and conflict resolution, recruiting and training new activists, and planning the 1,000+ attendee Animal Liberation Conference.

Sue Spahr has been devoted to animals, the natural world, and vulnerable humans as far back as she can remember. Her animal activism commenced as a tiny child standing up for ants in danger of being stomped on and flies about to be swatted (insects are her first love). She became a dedicated animal activist at the age of 14, after learning dissection was a "thing", resulting in a heated confrontation with her Biology teacher.

She has also been whispering the same wish for well over 50 years on birthday candles and shooting stars -- and even turkey wishbones way back when -- that "people stop hurting animals". Those same turkey wishbones symbolize the casual speciesism so prevalent in our society. To highlight and offset this, Wishbone Animal Rights Lab, a creativity incubator designed to spark, generate, and disseminate much-needed creative activism in the animal rights movement, was born. Meeting and office space, equipment lending library, recording studio, training, open-source resources, programming, networking, brokering…dedicated to animal and planet activists. Wishbone: Where wishes get activated!

When not fighting for social justice, Sue can be found buying bruised pieces of fruit, stuffed animals missing an eye, and dented cans of beans.