Yes, Active For Animals!
YAFA stands for York Action for Animals, a very active animal rights group based in York, started in 2003. YAFA Youth is the youth-run branch. YAFA Youth supports the campaigns of YAFA by letter writing to local companies and to local newspapers. They have also put displays up in Millthorpe School Library and York Central Library promoting vegetarianism, veganism and raising awareness of other animal rights issues.
The main campaigns of YAFA and YAFA Youth are the Fur Free York campaign, which has made York almost fur free, and the Foie Gras campaign, to get York restaurants to stop selling the fatty live pâté created by caging and force feeding geese and ducks. They have supported local councillor Paul Blanchard, who passed a motion in York Council to ban foie gras from sale on council premises. After this ban, there remained only one restaurant in York selling foie gras, but after demonstrations by YAFA and YAFA Youth, the restaurant dropped foie gras! What fantastic work!
If you live in the York area and would like to get involved, YAFA Youth has a website at www.yafayouth.co.uk or you can email them on yafayouth@googlemail.com. We look forward to hearing much more from these determined young activists.
