Week 2: Busy. Busy.

Monday 6/20/11 - Day after my birthday: 
The morning started out like most mornings. I have really been getting used to the whole routine. At 9:15AM, we have our morning media meeting; at this meeting people who want to pitch ideas go up to a microphone and tell us what ideas they have for campaigns, etc., usually these ideas come from news sources. After the meeting I spent the morning doing some research on ideas to blog about for the PETA blog. At around 1:00PM I went to the national mall to work on the Animal Liberation project. The afternoon had some highs and lows like all the days I have worked on ALP. The lows was this really obnoxious woman walked up to our exhibit with her many kids and husband. She  walked over to the panel that reads "Slaughtered" where two photographs stand side by side. One photograph is of a pile of dead pigs and another is a pile of dead humans. She was not even fazed by the humans, but looked at the pigs and let out this obnoxious crackling laughter. Her kids walked over smiling and her husband stayed in the background. I offered her a free DVD about animal rights and a vegan recipe book, but she gave me her hand and said, "Oh please... you have to be kidding me." I just don't understand how some people could be so cruel and laugh at horrific scenes that make me want to cry.

Tuesday 6/21/11 - Fur Protest:

In the morning media meeting I learned that the pope just got a hybrid pope-mobile, an idea was thrown around about how we could reach out to the pope. I spent my morning going through news sources and searching for more blogging ideas in addition to listening to our campaign organizer call the press and send out press releases about our anti-fur demonstration. At around 11:00 in the morning we left for downtown Washington DC and set up six dog kennels on the side of the sidewalk in two layers of three; six PETA interns climbed in and put on real fur coats in the scorching heat. They all held signs, some said, "Animals Are Not Ours To Wear" and others said, "Summer Is No Fun For Animals On Fur Farms." One person stood on each side of the cage, one wore a television showing what happens on fur farms and held up a (plastic) skinned fox. The other held up another "Animals Are Not Ours To Wear" sign. I handed out flyers about cruelty free fashion on the corner of the street. About seven different media sources came to report on our demonstration including The DCist (click on the link to see their story about us.) Only two people offended me at the demo. One woman said she loves wearing fur and I just don't understand that. Another woman said that she hoped our plastic skinned fox was real so that we would get in trouble for animal abuse. I mean, really? She hopes we would get in trouble for trying to help animals, but she didn't even think twice about what the video showed about fur farmers and how they skin animals alive for fur. Overall most people walking by said that they do not wear fur and wound up taking a cruelty free fashion guide, which also explained the problems with leather in addition to the problems with fur.

Wednesday 6/22/11 - Being told to die?:

My morning was full of research and I contributed a bit of good information tot he morning media meeting. It was the afternoon that go the best of me. It was just another day doing outreach at the animal liberation project until an older woman and her family walked up and I offered them a free animal rights DVD and magazine. The woman got in my face and told me to go die. I stood there in shock. Her family walked by on both sides of me smirking. I all of a sudden got so hot and enraged. I thought for a while after that and realized that someone telling me to die means nothing to me, but being out there and helping to improve the lives of animals means the world and I will never let someone like her scare me away from what I feel is important.

Thursday 6/23/11 - I decided to be nice and do two outreach events today:

Things were fairly slow in the office after I got back from my 8:00AM animal testing outreach event, which went amazingly well. People were responsive and receptive. Only two people gave me and the other girl I was with a hard time. A man who did research on animals told me I had no idea what I was talking about (when in fact I did because I have done a lot of research on the subject) and another woman who worked for Proctor and Gamble one of the most biggest corporations who test on animals like crazy (please do not buy anything from Proctor and Gamble). The Proctor and Gamble woman told us that it is important to test on animals and I told her it is not necessary and the government does not even require it because there are so many other ways to day to test products like fake skin, cell tubes, computer robots, etc. I also told her that nine out of 10 tests on animals were proven to be ineffective when the final test was tested on humans. Basically this means that animal tests are counter productive.

We had an hour long staff meeting when we got back. The meeting was about all of the things PETA has accomplished in June and was very inspiring for me. The afternoon outreach (ALP) event went really well. We were set up at The Foggy Bottom metro station by George Washington University and there were swarms of people. I could not believe how much literature we got out.

Friday 6/24/11 - Slow morning and afternoon:
The afternoon at ALP went quite well. There were a few highlights that stood out so much for me:
1) A young intern who is working at the IRS came by and was really intrigued by the Animal Liberation Project exhibit. I gave him a Vegan Starter Kit, DVD, and Animal Liberation Project leaflet. We talked for a few minutes and he said he really wanted to help out and volunteer for PETA. I do believe he will go vegan.

2) A father and son (around 18 years old) from upstate New York, who did not seem like they were the type to be interested in animal rights came over and asked me if PETA was trying to stop all the abuse in factory farms and of course I told them what we are doing to stop it. I started talking to them about veganism and if they weren't ready to go vegan what they could do. They walked away with loads of information, a Vegan Starter Kit, a DVD and an ALP leaflet and I could tell that the son was fed up with the meat industry, he couldn't stop watching the video and looking at the exhibit.

Week 1: Hello Washington DC!

After five years of being vegan it seems weird that I have not made the decision to intern for PETA sooner.  I mean PETA has been my guiding light throughout the vegan part of my life. Now as a senior in college and about to graduate in December, the direction I want to take with my future became clear; I definitely want to work for an animal rights organization and PETA is my first choice. For the next two and a half months at this notorious non-profit organization I will be working on social media activism, blogging and participating in outreach events across our nation's capitol. This experience will not only build my activism skills, but also my communication skills, a huge plus for my multimedia journalism major.

Monday 6/13/11- Full of Tears:
My first day at PETA was all about orientation, we watched the documentary Earthlings an incredible, graphic, and heart-wrenching look on how animals are treated in the food, fashion, science, and entertainment industry, in addition to the fait of our companion animals due to breeders, pet stores, and puppy mills. I was in orientation with two other interns and there was not a dry eye in the conference room where we were watching the film. I have known about this film for a few years now, but have not been able to bring my self to watching it because I know all about the issues that go on and did not want to have to witness them. However, with that being said I am glad I watched it (it was a good character building experience) and I recommend that everyone else watches it also. The facts that the video shares are facts that we all should know. Aside from the video reinforcing my thoughts on veganism and strengthening my argument, I also got valuable documentary making knowledge out of it.
For the second half of the day we watched a film on effective communication and how to talk to the public about animal rights issues. This film was obviously a lot more bearable than Earthlings.


Tuesday 6/14/11 - First Project Assigned: 
Our intern coordinator assigned Melanie (another intern) and I a project that took quite some research. We were asked to conduct a google news search on all of the accidents involving tractor trailers carrying animals to slaughterhouses after March 1, 2011 and create an excel document based on a description of the accident, the date it occurred, where it happened, how many animals died, and the news source. The results were quite disturbing. We found eight results, all involving cattle. The worst of the stories was about an accident that took place in Hazel Crest, IL. A tractor-trailer flipped over while on an overpass and 16 of the cattle were tossed onto the highway below; those 16 died. One witness even saw one of the cattle lift up his their head right before they died.

Wednesday 6/15/11 - First Day Working on The Animal Liberation Project
This was one of my busiest days so far. The first half of the day, we were trained on what the Animal Liberation Project is, we talked a lot about people's reaction to it, we read a packet on it, we viewed the website. This was all to prepare us for the huge outreach project that we are to participate in a few days a week, all summer long. The Animal Liberation Project is a large exhibit of about four 6' X 8' panels and a large flat screen television that is all set up on the National Mall right in front of the Smithsonian. What the project does is compare the abuse of animals today with the abuse of humans in the past. The intoductory panel consists of a bunch of facts about animal rights. However, the first panel of the series is called Born Into Slavery - Child Labor and relates veal calves to child slaves. The point here is veal calves are taken away from dairy cows at birth and kept in a crate for the entire duration of their short lives. This is similar to child labor. The second panel is Slaughtered - Khemer Rouge Genocide. This compares two photographs of a mass genocide of humans and a mass genocide of pigs (who have the intellectual capacity to surpass a dog). The final panel is called Imprisoned-Iran-Iraq Conflict. The comparison is made here between zooed animals and prisoners of war in Iraq. The basic goal of the project is to educate the public about animal rights being an important subject that needs major social reform.

Thursday 6/16/11 - A Big Fish In Chinatown
Today was a slower day than usual, but the highlight was going to Chinatown and putting on a big fish costume while holding a sign that said "fishing hurts" as some of the other interns handed out pamphlets on why we should not fish or eat fish. We only did this for a couple of hours and when we returned we had an hour long meeting on effective online activism. The meeting was just a reinforcement on what I am sure most of us already knew (at least I did), Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. However the meeting definitely pumped me up and inspired me to post and tweet more.

Friday 6/17/11 - POTLUCK!
One of the best things about working in an office where everyone is vegan like me if the food. I don't have to ask questions about what is in the food because I know everything is "safe." Even the sugar for the coffee and tea says, "Vegan Cane Sugar." This is a treat for me because I used to have to bring my own packets of Sugar-In-The-Raw to school and my last internship because all they offered was the non-vegan sugar that was made using charred animal bones. I can't really cook in my hostel so I went to Whole Foods this morning and bought some broccoli raab sauteed in olive oil with big chunks of garlic and chipotle roasted sweet potatoes. The potluck was incredible, one girl made "vegan mini cheese and chive muffins" and another girl made vegan spinach dip in a bread bowl. There was plenty more food, but those were my top favorites! The afternoon spent working on the animal liberation project was very successful. We had DVDs narrated by Paul Mcartney called "Glass Walls" when people asked what they were about and I said animal rights they immediately responded by taking one and saying, "Oh I am definitely into animal rights." Some would say they volunteer at dog shelters, some said they donate money, but when I told them that the easiest and cheapest way to help animals was to go vegan, they immediately started thinking about it and it resulted with them walking away with a vegan starter kit. I would love to think that by being out there and educating people on this issue we are turning at least one person vegan. One vegan equals saving the lives of 100 animals a year.