By Jennifer Colbourne (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 14, 2012
Lauren Hannem may appear to be your typical English student, but underneath burns a passionate heart for her fellow animals. Unable to find an avenue for her desire to promote animal welfare, she founded the Protection of Animal Well-Being by Students (PAWS) group on campus.
Rather than being a pushy protest group, Hannem has made an effort to ensure that PAWS is an organization with the goal of informing students about animal issues.
“We’re essentially about animal welfare through education, by giving people the means and the information that they need to make an informed decision,” Hannem said. “[PAWS is] then not only about, you know, saying that you should eat a certain way, or you should do this, but giving [students the] knowledge about where to go… I found when I was becoming a vegetarian [that] there were lots of people telling me their points of view, but then you couldn’t find anything to actually go to [for information].”
Hannem acknowledged the difficulty of promoting animal welfare in an agriculturally-based community. Nonetheless, she has attracted a steady stream of interested students over the past few years that she’s encouraged to speak out about their passions.
“I find that people [say]… ‘Well, I don’t know, can we do stuff like that?’ and I’ve got to be the one whose like, ‘Yeah, we can do it – let’s just do it!’… We really try and encourage everybody that is involved in our group to go for what they’re interested in,” stated Hannem. “So we have one girl that’s really interested in fur, then we have another girl that’s extremely interested in the food aspects – personally, I’m really interested in the law aspects… We obviously can’t change those things, we just try and educate people in the best routes they could go.”
PAWS educates and advocates in a variety of ways. They have had a number of on campus events, such as movie nights, guest speakers, field trips, dog walks, fundraisers for local rescues, booths, and petitions like the World’s Society for the Protection of Animal (WSPA)’s “Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare.” Philosophy professor Wayne Henry has also been an active supporter of the group, and has helped bring in guest speakers to UFV.
“We have two campaigns going on this semester,” Hannem explained. “We would like to see a switch of our egg consumption from regular eggs that come from battery farms to cage free… [to] make it a University policy, and then therefore Sodexo in their buying of eggs would have to buy [caged free eggs].”
In North America, there are more than 350 academic institutions (15 of which are in Canada) that have reduced or eliminated the number of battery cage eggs used in their dishes. In BC alone, BCIT, UBC, SFU, UVic and others are working towards eliminating the consumption of battery cage eggs at their schools. The Fraser Valley is an epicenter of egg production in Canada, and many farms in the area produce cage-free eggs.
In addition to the egg-campaign, Hannem said, “We’re bringing in guest speakers from two local rescues… We have one lady that’s coming from SAINTS which is a rescue for older animals, and she’s going to talk about… care for animals in their older age: what it entails and… how people drop the ball around that time that’s usually, you know, when you have to fork out the majority of your money for those animals,” Hannem noted.
“The other rescue that we have coming is Sherriff’s Rescue, and they’re going to talk about rehabilitation for animals that have obviously been treated badly… [and] the pitbull perception, and how they’ve been demonized in our society… Both of them are going to talk about the need of rescues in society and how, you know, there is a need because there are so many animals… They are overpopulating and people aren’t taking care of them, and it’s weird that… it’s not something that’s being regulated by the government. It’s just being thrown in the hands of all these non-profits, so they have to take care of [the animals].”
Both animal rescue workers will be at UFV to speak on March 15 at 2:00 p.m. in room F125.
Hannem said “[I’ve had a passion for animals] ever since I can remember… I remember I’ve loved horses since before I could walk. It’s always been there.”
“I think that everything has a right to life, has a right to freedom, and has a right to have the sun on its face… I just don’t feel like anything should be abused just because it doesn’t have a voice. I don’t think that that’s fair.”
Anyone interested in joining or for more information about PAWS should contact Lauren Hannem at Lauren.Hannem@student.ufv.ca.
