PRE-ANIMAL ACTIVIST WEEK
IS ALMOST HERE!
July 28 – August 2
What is P.A.A.W.?
Pre-Animal Activist Week (P.A.A.W.) is APEX's flagship program designed to ignite the animal advocacy movement by centering Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) social justice activists. This immersive, empowering, and entirely free multi-day experience is for those who are already passionate about justice but have not yet incorporated animal liberation into their work.
P.A.A.W. invites you to explore the intersections of human and animal oppression through a decolonial and collective liberation lens. Held in the vibrant Atlanta, GA area, the event creates space for radical learning, grassroots engagement, and community building that connects the fight for animal rights to broader movements for justice.
This isn’t about a surface-level introduction—we’re talking bold, transformative learning and praxis. If you’re ready to expand your activism, challenge oppressive systems, and ultimately fight for total liberation, P.A.A.W. is for you.
Why Should You Join?
Centering BIPOC Advocates
This program is exclusively for non-vegan BIPOC individuals, with the goal of making animal liberation advocacy more inclusive and intersectional. We believe in amplifying the voices of those who are often excluded from these spaces.Radical Programming
P.A.A.W. takes a no-compromises approach to social, racial, and animal justice. Explore concepts like “animalization” and the ways in which exploitation of animals mirrors and reinforces the oppression of marginalized peoples. Highlights of the experience include:Workshops and training sessions on intersectional animal activism.
Guest speakers from intersecting movements.
Grassroots activism opportunities in local Atlanta communities.
Intentional spaces for reflection, collaboration, and dialogue.
Community and Collaboration
Join 20 like-minded advocates from across the country. Build meaningful connections with comrades who share a commitment to justice and liberation, all while learning from an experienced team of advisors who are deeply rooted in the work of intersectional activism.Fully Plant-Based Experience
All meals—breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks—will be provided and are fully plant-based. This reflects a shared commitment to rejecting the exploitation of animals in all forms, including food, clothing, entertainment, research, and labor, while fostering a holistic approach to liberation and care for all beings. (We kindly ask participants to avoid bringing items like leather, wool, silk, or body care products tested on animals when possible, but we understand this may not be feasible for everyone—please just do your best.)
Key Details
July 28 – August 2, 2025
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Deadline to Apply: Monday, June 9, 2025
Eligibility:Must be a non-vegan BIPOC individual.
Must be passionate about social justice and open to exploring animal liberation through this lens.
Cost:FREE to attend, including housing, meals, and program materials.
(Travel costs to Atlanta, GA, are the responsibility of participants. However, we understand that travel can be a barrier, and we’ll do our best to assist those in need with limited travel support, assessed on a case-by-case basis and dependent on our budget.)
Meet the Facilitators & Movement Voices of P.A.A.W.
Yvette Baker (she/her)
PROGRAM LEAD DEVELOPER, EDUCATOR & FACILITATOR Living for total liberation, Yvette moves through the world as a writer, independent researcher, social critic, and proud rat lady, guided by an Afro-Indigenous lens. Her work and life are rooted in a shared accountability to all relations–building with comrades, listening to beyond-human kin, and unlearning every day. Her mind is a landscape of unknowns and complexities–brilliant in some ways, yet prone to devastating falterings. She holds space for mistakes, revelations, and the dance of transformation, no music required.
Yasmin Badshamiah (she/they)
Program CO Developer & FacilitatorYasmin is deep in mutual aid organizing, mothering within movement, poetry with teeth, grassroots strategy, and queerness as politic. Living in the so-called United States accelerated a lifelong process of learning and unlearning—about power, survival, responsibility, and what it means to create beyond systems designed to extract. Their practice is rooted in kinship with beyond-human life and in active reverence for Black, Indigenous, and global traditions of resistance.
As a facilitator, Yasmin co-stewards spaces of horizontal education, guided by abolitionist values and community wisdom. They work in the gaps—where contradictions live, where tender/raged-filled truths emerge, where language becomes a site of return: a place where collective imagination takes form, and the pulse beyond words calls us closer to total liberation.
Christopher “Soul” Eubanks (he/him)
Movement Voice, Founder, Program support & operations leadChristopher Eubanks, the founder of APEX Advocacy, is a climate, human and animal rights activist dedicated to doing advocacy work to promote a vegan lifestyle and combat all forms of injustice. Christopher became vegan, began doing community organizing and helped to co-organize Atlanta’s first-ever Animal Rights March.
MaryAnn Montalvo (she/her)
MOVEMENT VOICE & OPERATIONS LEADMaryAnn is a social justice advocate in Arizona whose passion for collective liberation was sparked by learning about industrialized animal agriculture. For nearly a decade, she has educated others on the intersections of food choices and justice while supporting those transitioning to vegan lifestyles. Believing liberation requires both education and operational work, she balances advocacy with behind-the-scenes organizing.
Akbar Ali (he/him)
MOVEMENT VOICEAkbar is a Denver-based activist committed to collective liberation across species and struggles. A vegan for nine years, he’s worked with groups like Mercy For Animals, Legal Impact for Chickens, and Logistically Nonprofit Services—leading efforts in operations, international expansion, recruitment, and legal support. After leaving medical school, Akbar chose a creative and philosophical path, earning a degree in English & American Literature from Northwestern. He’s also a writer, producer, and actor behind several award-winning TV and web series. Fluent in Spanish, Arabic, and Hindustani, Akbar brings a global fluency to his organizing.
Christopher Sebastian (he/him)
EDUCATOR, MOVEMENT VOICE & FACILITATORChristopher Sebastian is a journalist, technical writer, and adjunct lecturer. He teaches in the School of Journalism, Media, and Visual Arts at Anglo-American University in Prague. He writes about food, politics, media, pop culture, and (of course) animals.
Brialle Ringer (she/her)
MOVEMENT CHEF & WELLNESS SUPPORTBrialle is a somatic coach and wellness educator committed to helping change makers lead with greater ease and joy. As a former burnt-out social worker turned healer, Brialle intimately knows what it's like to feel overwhelmed by compassion fatigue, struggling to slow down and rest out of fear that the causes you care about will suffer. She has spent the last decade decolonizing from grind culture, learning to listen to the language of her body, and guiding thousands of others to do the same.
Brialle's offerings blend breathwork, yoga, dance, plant based nutrition, connection to nature, and ancestral wisdom for a holistic approach to health. She also happens to be a wizard in the kitchen and will be supporting with food during PAAW.
Connie Spence (she/her)
Movement VoiceVegan since 2010, Connie began her activism by shining giant spotlight messages on buildings to expose the truth about animal exploitation & the food system. Her mission led her to become a food policy lobbyist and develop deep expertise in the U.S. food system. Through this work, she came to a hard truth: the U.S. has slid into complete monopolization, with corporations controlling politicians and their spending across nearly every industry, including food. She believes the food system has always been a cornerstone of white supremacy, existing to preserve the power and wealth of white landowners, particularly cattle ranchers, while systematically excluding Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. She does not believe meaningful federal reform is possible from within, and that the system must be gutted and rebuilt from the ground up.
While Connie has stepped away from federal lobbying, she continues to believe that city, county, and state governments hold the potential for food system change & building Black, Brown and Indigenous communities' economic power & health.
ever quinatzín (they/he)
Movement Voiceever is a queer, trans masc, disabled, and neurodivergent Latinx organizer and systems strategist committed to total liberation—for humans, nonhuman animals, and the Earth. With over two decades of experience in nonprofit leadership, they bring a care-centered, anti-oppressive lens to operations, HR, and finance. ever is the founder of Liberatory People Ops and has held senior leadership roles at The Humane League, Californians for Justice, and Strozzi Institute for Somatics.
Rooted on unceded Kizh (Tongva) Land, ever's work is grounded in the belief that liberation is not theoretical, it’s logistical, relational, and embodied. When not dismantling systems, they can be found cooking plant-based meals for their Beloveds, gardening with their kids, walking slowly with their rescue dog, Honey, or pulling tarot as a practice of queer care and connection.
Dana McPhall (she/her)
Movement VoiceDana McPhall is an educator and advocate dedicated to collaborating with educators, thought leaders, and community advocates in exploring and understanding the intertwined roots of racism/anti-Blackness and animal exploitation and in developing educational initiatives and fostering coalition-building to challenge and dismantle systems of racial hierarchy. In recent years, Dana has led nonprofit educational programs designed to support educators and advocates in promoting interrelated issues of social justice within the U.S. food system, and has taught and designed graduate level courses in humane education, including a self-designed course on race, intersectionality, and veganism. Most recently, Dana has launched a new educational project called Liberate In Mind whose mission is to shift cultural narratives and mindsets and to promote movement coalition-building in order to dismantle racialized systems of oppression that produce the subjugation of humans and beyond human animals. Earlier in her career, Dana advocated for justice on behalf of survivors of domestic violence, especially those within communities of color, and beyond human animals suffering from abuse and neglect. More generally, Dana has over 30 years of experience in the nonprofit, government, and legal sectors, and holds a Master’s Degree in Education through the Institute for Humane Education graduate programs, as well as a Juris Doctorate and a Master’s Degree in Public Policy.
Sara Naqvi (she/her)
Movement VoiceSara Naqvi is a vegan home chef, animal advocate, and content creator (@thepakistanivegan). Her focus is on reimagining the traditional Pakistani dishes of her upbringing and advocating for a plant-based lifestyle for her community. Sara is also a vegan of more than 15 years and a mother to two thriving vegan children. She is the co-owner of Punjab Spice Company (@punjabspicecompany) – the first fully plant-based Pakistani food pop-up in the U.S. based in Atlanta, GA.
Jovanna of Awali
Movement Voice & Guided ExperienceAwali is a Veganic Homestead and Education Center dedicated to cultivating food sovereignty and community-rooted learning through plant-based food systems and creative land-based education. Their mission is to grow food-secure communities by honoring beyond-human kin, ancestral memory, and collective responsibility.
Free from hierarchy and speciesism, Awali moves as a collective—recognizing the inherent wisdom and offerings of all beings. Their 5-acre food forest is sacred ground: a Source space where ancestral knowledge, seed sovereignty, and cultural re-memory come into relationship.
Awali’s vision resonates deeply with the spirit of P.A.A.W.—a shared commitment to land, liberation, and collective care.
Sweet Olive Farm Animal Rescue
Movement Voice & Guided ExperienceSweet Olive Farm Animal Rescue is a safe and welcoming space in Winterville, Georgia. Their mission is to provide a forever home for farmed and exotic animals that are unwanted, injured, elderly, homeless, and need a safe place to land. Their mission also includes creating a nurturing and healing space for animals and humans, with a special focus on children.
Founded in 2010, SOFAR is now home to over 250 rescued farmed animals. Their volunteer-run 501c3 cares for these animals, providing daily feeding, grooming, shelter, farm chores, and vet care. The animals give back with unconditional love, which feeds the souls of all who enter the grounds.
Your Commitment
By joining P.A.A.W., you commit to stepping into a space of learning and action that challenges systems of oppression at every level. Veganism isn’t a trend or a diet—it’s a decolonial approach to liberating all beings.
Whether you’re showing up for the planet, for your communities, or for the trillions of animals exploited every year, P.A.A.W. will give you the tools to stand in solidarity with all sentient life.
Who Should Apply?
If you are a BIPOC social justice advocate who’s curious about veganism and the connections between human and animal oppression, this is your opportunity. If you don’t qualify, we still need your help! Share this with someone in your life who might be the perfect fit. Justice is collective, and allyship means connecting others to spaces where they can thrive.
What Past Participants Are Saying:
P.A.A.W. was life-changing. I came in curious, and I left as an advocate. The connections I made, the tools I learned, and the lens of liberation I now have will stay with me forever."
This event taught me how animals are embedded in every struggle we face and gave me the confidence to bring this understanding to my work."
Support for P.A.A.W. is bigger than a donation.
They said there wasn’t space for us in this movement, so we’re making one – together. P.A.A.W. is what happens when Black, Indigenous, and other system-impacted BIPOC organizers say: animal liberation must reflect our lives, our histories, our truths.
We’re funding a future where no being is oppressed—not our people, not the land, not our non-human relatives.
Will you add your support?