Our Hen House: Vegan & Animal Rights Movement | Stories from the Frontlines of Animal Liberation Episode 599: Supporting Community ft. Seb Alex
Our Hen House is honored to welcome animal rights activist Seb Alex onto the podcast this week. Seb, a Lebanon-based activist, explains how he shifted his activism from focusing on speaking engagements, in Europe and beyond, to online activism in the wake of COVID-19. He also outlines how the newly established Lebanese Vegans Social Hub serves as an animal rights center, why it’s so critical for activists to have a safe space, how they’re helping people eat more plant-based, and the events the center hosts. The former architect discusses how activist group Lebanese Vegans rallied together to support the local community in the wake of the horrific 2020 explosion in Beirut and the onset of the pandemic. Seb also highlights the importance of activists looking after their mental health and shares the boundaries he sets to better care for himself.
Seb Alex is a passionate activist who moved to Europe from Lebanon to pursue his career in sustainable architecture but soon decided to leave the corporate world behind to pursue animal activism. He is now creating animal rights content for social media, organizing grassroots activism events, and writing an animal rights ebook, When Animals and Logic Meet. He also helps run the world’s first animal rights and vegan support center, the Lebanese Vegans Social Hub, in the heart of Beirut, Lebanon.
“We are here for justice, we are here out of compassion, and to help as many people and animals as we can.”
– Seb Alex
Interview Highlights:
- How Lebanese Vegans Social Hub provides a space for activist groups to come together and make the world a better place
- Seb’s social media work and his goals for the content he makes
- Why he decided to write When Animals and Logic Meet to lay bare how people justify what is done to farmed animals by appealing to a logical fallacy and how to get past this in discussions of animal rights
- How Seb frames his messaging to best impact others and allow them to listen to what he has to say
- The disconnect between people’s emotional reactions to cute companion animals and their disregard for the exploitation of farmed animals
- Seb’s feelings about plant-based and cell-based meat, why he’s not a fan, and whether he thinks they will lead to massive change when it comes to how we treat animals
- Why it’s easy and cost-effective for people in Lebanon to eat a plant-based diet and how the Lebanese Vegans Social Hub is spreading the word on what they do
Resources:
Connect with Seb Alex:
Connect with Our Hen House:
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This episode is brought to you in part through the generosity of A Well-Fed World. A Well-Fed World provides the means for change by empowering individuals, social justice organizations, and political decision makers to embrace the benefits of plant-based foods and farming. Learn more at awfw.org.
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