Agenda
Posterboard 
Stream 
Month September – December 2013
Educating for a Just, Peaceful & Sustainable Future is a groundbreaking opportunity to discover your role in comprehensive humane education — and lead global change. If you are a teacher, educational administrator, changemaker, policymaker, humane educator and/or concerned citizen, please join us Saturday, Sept. 21, for an exciting and transformative day.
You will gain new skills to communicate and teach others about the most important issues of our time, meet and network with people in your field, explore the purpose of education, and witness extraordinary examples of relevant education for our time.
The conference features keynotes from Jane Goodall, Arun Gandhi, and Zoe Weil, hands-on humane education workshops and an International Day of Peace parade.
Presented by Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers (HEART), the Institute for Humane Education (IHE) and Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots, this conference features a dynamic program of speakers including Jane Goodall, DBE, UN Messenger of Peace and founder of the Jane Goodall Institute; Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and founder of the Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute; Zoe Weil, president of the Institute for Humane Education; and many other acclaimed speakers.
The conference also includes applied humane education workshops and a parade in honor of the U.N. International Day of Peace, when the United Nations calls upon all nations and people to cease hostilities for 24 hours and to offer education and public awareness about issues related to peacemaking. The theme for this year’s observance is “Education for Peace.” Our humane education conference will offer information, tools and motivation to people wishing to help build a peaceful world for all people and all species through education.
The conference will be hosted by New York University’s Animal Studies Initiative in the NYU Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life. The conference welcomes educators, changemakers, students and concerned citizens from across the United States and abroad. Early general registration is $75 through Aug. 1, 2013, and $95 thereafter. Student registration is $25 through Aug. 1, 2013, and $35 thereafter. If the cost prevents a potential participant from registering, an adjusted rate may be considered on a sliding scale. Please use the Contact Us tab to submit a request.
Effective action against vivisection. The Free the Animals Conference will empower and energize activists across the U.S. to attack the animal experimentation issue head-on and make concrete changes for the tens of millions of animals who are imprisoned in laboratories.
Registration includes:
- Admittance to all conference programs Friday-Sunday
- Three full days of training, motivation, and tactics
- Private screening of Project Nim
- Saturday night social (light vegan fare)
- Conference materials (schedule, etc.)
- Major demonstration at the UCLA campus
Stop Animal Exploitation NOW! (SAEN) was founded in 1996 to force an end to the abuse of animals in laboratories. Our first major event was a news conference that revealed the suffering endured by dogs, rabbits, and primates in 9 laboratories across the United States.
Documents obtained by SAEN had revealed severe abuses within the laboratories of Michigan State University, University of Southern California, University of Washington, Stolle Research and Development, University of South Florida, Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center (associated with Emory University), University of Florida, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Toledo. The USDA fined several of these laboratories, and abusive primate experiments within the laboratories of the University of Toledo were terminated subsequent to the SAEN news conference.
Since our inception, SAEN staff and the tireless volunteers who support our campaigns on the local level have allowed us to make a real difference for the animals. With the help of grassroots activists, SAEN has ended pound seizure (the sale of former pets from animal shelters to labs) in Nashville (TN), and we have also ended abusive experiments on primates in San Diego (CA).
Our investigations have revealed abuses within laboratories from Boston to California and from Florida to Washington. Facilities that torture animals in Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Oregon, and North Carolina have been exposed. SAEN has been able to bring the truth about animal experimentation to the public through dozens of newspapers, magazines, and television & radio stations. Literally millions of people have seen the results of SAEN investigations. But Stop Animal Exploitation NOW! is probably the best kept secret within the animal rights movement.
In 2001 SAEN filed the largest Official Complaint in history with the United States Department of Agriculture. Our complaint uncovered abuses in nationally known laboratories like UCLA, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Yale, Harvard, The Salk Institute, MIT, and dozens of other laboratories.
In April of 2002, SAEN released the results of an investigation into the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the bankrolling of U.S. animal experimentation. The SAEN report asked for a General Accounting Office audit of the NIH to examine the issues of duplication and redundancy. Media coverage of the SAEN report reached over one million people.
In June of 2002, SAEN again filed a milestone complaint with the USDA revealing that Harvard and Yale had lied to the USDA about the number of primates experimented on in university laboratories.
In our brief history SAEN has made a concrete difference for the animals, and we will continue to fight for their freedom until all the laboratory cages are empty.
About Michael Budkie
Michael Budkie, A.H.T., is the co-founder and Executive Director of Stop Animal Exploitation NOW! (SAEN), that works exclusively on the animal experimentation issue by successfully terminating research projects, forcing the USDA to take legal action against laboratories, and coordinating release of animals into sanctuaries. After witnessing the atrocities of animal experimentation during his education, he successfully ended a head injury experiment on cats at the University of Cincinnati that launched his career leading to positions with several national organizations before he co-founded SAEN in the mid-1990s. He has been published and he travels extensively, appearing on TV and radio programs to expose the truth about animal experimentation.
A conference on “Personhood Beyond the Human” will be held at Yale University, December 6-8, 2013. The event will focus on personhood for nonhuman animals, including great apes, cetaceans, and elephants, and will explore the evolving notions of personhood by analyzing them through the frameworks of neuroscience, behavioral science, philosophy, ethics, and law.
The conference will be co-sponsored by the Nonhuman Rights Project and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies in collaboration with the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics.
Special consideration will be given to discussions of nonhuman animal personhood, both in terms of understanding the history, science, and philosophy behind personhood, and ways to protect animal interests through the establishment of legal precedents and by increasing public awareness.
By the close of the conference, attendees will have gained an enhanced understanding of the neurological, cognitive, and behavioral underpinnings of personhood and those traits required for such consideration; personhood theory; the history of personhood consideration and status (both in terms of philosophical and legal conceptions); and the legal hurdles and requirements for granting personhood status outside of the human species.
The Nonhuman Rights Project will be presenting our research from the past five years including research on the varying legal causes of action that the Nonhuman Rights Project will use to argue legal personhood for specific nonhuman animals.
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies