Animal Rights

Animal Rights is one of the six pillars of the 10th Element of Hip Hop health & Wellness Program. Coming soon will be information and hands on trips into nature with animal interaction. Our goal is to set up trips to farm sanctuaries for youth and families and to encourage them to care about animal rights as well as show films about animal suffering and policy change.

 

Team

 

Lauren Ornelas

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. While lauren was the director of Viva!USA, 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. lauren was also the spark that got the founder of Whole Foods Market to become a vegan. In addition, she served as campaign director with the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition for six years. Watch lauren’s TEDx talk, The Power of Our Food Choices.

 

 

Peter Ortiz

Being vegan means showing compassion, empathy and respect for all living creatures. We live in a society where countless animals are tortured and brutally killed so humans can eat meat and dairy and wear animal-made products when we don't need these products to live healthy and productive lives. I choose to eat a vegan, plant-based diet because it does not involve subjecting animals to unnecessary suffering and because animals deserve to live as much as I do.