Mê Thú Cưng - Pet Magazine for Vietnam | Số 5 | Issue Five | Animal Welfare Vietnam | Page 48

Mê Thú Cưng
We were shown an American
film with Vietnamese subtitles
called ”The Witness”, a
documentary about a gruff
New Yorker’s conversion
to vegetarianism and his
work rescuing animals and
exposing the horrors of the
fur trade. Afterwards, the
tables were filled with a variety
of vegetarian spring rolls as
well as some delicious lotus
seed milk. This event was not
simply to entertain those of
us working in animal welfare,
but expose us to an example
of the educational work that
YDV has had much success
with. Inviting the public for a
free event with an informative
documentary and then feeding
them great food is a model
that could work pretty much
everywhere to educate the
people on animal welfare

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issues. For those of us that
went, there was a real takehome message in this event.
On the second day of the
conference we were able to
break into working groups that
divided us into our respective
specialties. In these groups
for farm animals, wildlife,
and companion animals, we
were instructed to come up
with some ideas about the
problems that we faced and
how we could collectively
address them. For each group,
we had slightly different
issues, but many came back
to relationships with the
government and relationships
with the public. Both involved
a lack of education or interest
in the issue of animal welfare
for any type of animals. All of
the working groups mentioned
low public awareness of animal

Số 05 | Tháng Chín & Mười & Mười Một 2014 | petmagazine.vn

rights issues and blockades
by the lack of government
regulations. The answer to
these issues always ended in
greater collaborative efforts,
stronger lobbying for animal
welfare legislation, and
the launching of different
types of public awareness
campaigns. It remains to be
seen how much collaboration
will actually happen after the
conference, however. Bùi
Trần Vĩnh Trí from the rescue
group, Cứu Trợ Động Vật Đà
Nẵng, has set up a Facebook
group, Các tổ chức động vật
tại Việt Nam -which is still in
its infancy at the time this goes
to press- in order to develop a
collaborative platform which
in which organizations can
share best practices and
lessons learned. Remaining
connected after the conference
and throughout the battle we
are fighting for the animals
will turn the whisper that is
the movement now, into the
roar which ]