Giving Compass' Take:

• Raffi Ciavatta and Lili Trenkova, co-founders of Collectively Free, share how creative, non-violent protest and "artivism" can lead to real systems change in animal activism.

• How is your activism contributing to systems change and how can your charitable giving support the same goals?

• Learn about the roots of philanthropic systems change.

We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Raffi Ciavatta and Lili Trenkova. Raffi is an “art director/graphic designer, immigrant, queer, activist, poet, and radical dreamer.” Lili is an “organizer, environmental designer, 3D artist, fabricator, and musician.” They are the co-founders of Collectively Free. The content of this post comes from two sources: (1) a conversation between Raffi Ciavatta and Toni Adleberg that took place on March 20, 2017, and (2) a piece written for ACE by Raffi and Lili.

Collectively Free (CF) engages in creative, non-violent protests, or “artivism.” Can you share the reasoning behind your approach?

Protesting is key for social change. Systemic change will not occur if we don’t “get out there” to make it happen. Protesting can take many forms, but we like street protests because they allow us to engage the public.

There are many artists involved with CF, and we find that using art brings down people’s walls. Street theatre, for example, can be used to invite people in and encourage them to engage with us. It breaks the barrier between “protester” and “observer.” One skit that we’ve performed is called “Swap Speciesism.” It uses costumes and storytelling, and it makes people laugh and question their feelings.

Simply put, we cannot fight one system of oppression (speciesism) by supporting or perpetuating others (sexism, ageism, etc.). As animal rights activists, we love to point out moral inconsistencies such as claiming we care about equality but excluding certain species who are worthy of consideration. Yet it works the other way around too. It is morally inconsistent to claim that we care about the bodily autonomy of hens, but to oppose the bodily autonomy of women.

Animal rights activists looking to get involved with other movements should, first of all, show up to actions because it’s the right thing to do, not out of expectation of reward or reciprocation for doing so. It takes a long time to build trust. CF has existed for three years it was only in January that we began to partner with other coalitions because it took that long to build the necessary trust and break the stereotypes.

Read the full article about creating systems change by Toni Adleberg at Animal Charity Evaluators.