Our Campaigns and Accomplishments in
This year has been challenging for all of us, characterized by uncertainty, fear, and feelings of helplessness. Despite this, we stayed hopeful and active. We celebrated 30 years since the first dedicated activists founded Animals Now. Their mission: to make the world a better place for animals and for all of us. Over the last 30 years, we’ve held powerful protests, given hundreds of thousands of lectures, handed out a sea of flyers educating people about the animal industries, and conducted groundbreaking undercover investigations. What began as a small organization is now home to dozens of employees, thousands of remarkable activists across the world, and millions of people who are taking steps in their own lives to protect animals. We’ve seen many changes over three decades. But some things haven’t changed: the dedication of the activists, the fight to make animals’ voices heard, and the motivation to give our heart and soul to create a better world for all animals.
We celebrated 1 million participants in Challenge 22!
This year was full of milestones for Challenge 22 – we celebrated 10 years since our foundation, and we crossed the one million(!) total participants mark! All of this is only possible thanks to our amazingly dedicated mentors, registered dietitians, and the friendly and inclusive community who guide participants from around the world in groups in English, Hebrew, and Spanish.
In 2024 alone, we accompanied over 175,000 participants on their vegan journeys in the Spanish, Israeli, and international Challenges! Our Challenge 22 Community project also continues to veganize the world, following the same winning recipe tailored to the local language and culture. As part of our collaboration with 8 organizations from different countries, over 90,000 more people experienced a vegan lifestyle through our Community project.
This year the Challenge has even more valuable content added to its toolbox: WhatsApp groups for participants and graduates, an English-language blog with tips, recommendations, and recipes, and a new and improved website for the Spanish Challenge, where the Spanish team has been sharing lots of delicious new recipes and blog posts – it really makes you want to learn Spanish! 🥰
In 2024, we stood up for animals in many familiar ways – and some new ones too!
We put sustainability on the menu of public cafeterias
We launched a groundbreaking initiative to introduce more plant-based dishes to the menus of public cafeterias: The Winning Dish: Improving Sustainability in the Kitchen (including an impressive new website created by our web team). The project, in collaboration with Greenpeace Israel, Green Course, and Robin Food, began operating as a pilot this year in two boarding schools, serving over 3,500 students every day. We engaged culinary consultants to put together a new menu and ensure that at least 50% of the dishes are plant-based – and the dishes received rave reviews. We encouraged diners to experiment with the new dishes – we distributed plant-based recipe booklets, advertised the vegan dishes, and ran lectures and workshops for teachers and staff exploring the connection between nutrition and sustainability. The project is expected to support additional companies and organizations in the near future, so if you want to be among them, get in touch via the website!
We mobilized decision-makers to reduce animal food consumption
The Green Government Catering Tender, a project by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Environmental Protection to increase the supply of plant-based foods in the catering of state institutions, which we helped create and promote, received its first government funding in 2024. This new funding has already resulted in new plant-based dishes being added to several catering complexes!
We are also active in the discussion and implementation of the National Food Security Plan, which aims to plan food supply for local residents in the coming decades. We are leading an effort by several environmental organizations to ensure that the plan includes significant steps to increase the production and consumption of plant-based foods and reduce the production and consumption of animal-based foods – in line with the Ministry of Health’s nutritional recommendations that we have been advocating for in government.
We were active at the International Climate Conference
As part of the Israeli government’s pavilion at November’s Climate Conference in Azerbaijan, we hosted the Bites of Change event, shining a light on the harmful effects of the meat industry and the policies necessary to fight it. Representatives of the Ministries of Health and Environmental Protection presented the initiative that we collaborated on to increase plant-based foods in government cafeterias.
We presented the content of the “Change Starts On Our Plates” program that we helped integrate into the Ministry of Education’s curriculum. And as a first at a climate conference, Danish MP Carl Valentin spoke about the pioneering decision he has been promoting in Denmark to impose a carbon tax on the animal food industries to further promote a plant-based future!
We kept fighting for animals in parliament
We continued the fight to stop live shipments and are promoting a few bills to stop this cruel practice. The forces we are up against are strong, but we will keep fighting until we succeed.
We are in talks with the Ministry of Agriculture about enforcement of the Animal Cruelty Act for the mistreatment of calves and are always advocating for improvements to conditions. We are also working on an amendment to the regulations for transporting livestock – everything to amplify the voices of animals.
We will keep raising the burning issues affecting animals with those in power, as well as highlighting the plight of animals during the war.
We sowed seeds of compassion and created tools for educators
Overshadowed by war, the regular activities of the education system were disrupted, but our dedicated team continued to sow the seeds of compassion among the youth. Our long-standing educational program, Share the World, runs lectures and workshops on animal rights in Hebrew and Arabic. Our Change Starts On Our Plates program, co-run with ‘Life & Environment’ and the Ministries of Environmental Protection and Health, provides experiential educational sessions on sustainable nutrition, focusing on plant-based foods.
We reached approximately 200 schools, youth movements, and youth villages with our programs this year and engaged with more than 34,000 teenagers from all walks of life.
In 2024, we provided training for 620 educational staff across establishments, including 3 training cycles with the Multidisciplinary Center for Science, Technology, Health and the Environment at the PISGA Center in Tel Aviv, the PISGA Center in Be’er-Sheva, as well as training for educators at schools, colleges, youth villages, and boarding schools.
We continued to upload educational animal rights and sustainability content to the Live Act website, which is accessed by thousands of educators every month, and in total, approximately 110,000 users used the site in 2024.
We also implemented changes following findings from an effectiveness study conducted last year on the ‘Change Starts On Our Plates’ program. Thanks to this study, we discovered that all participants are significantly more aware that plant-based foods are more environmentally friendly than animal-based foods. Middle school students also significantly agreed that reducing animal-based food consumption is a crucial step in protecting the environment. This school year, further research will be conducted to continue improving this wonderful program.
We were the voice of the animals online and in the media
Animals Now manages more than 25(!) different websites, which reached over 1.9 million users this year. We are always updating and improving our main website, the Israeli Vegetarian and Vegan website – our product pages now make up a huge database of vegan products such as meat replacements, dairy alternatives, sweet treats, and more. We added new nutrition content and recipes and teamed up with talented local bloggers. Thousands of people have signed up to receive our recipe newsletter, and our blog, “Everything you always wanted to know about animals,” ranks highly on Google and attracted tens of thousands of visitors in 2024.
We were interviewed by various media channels, both national and local, in Hebrew and English, for children and adults – including Ynet, the Times of Israel, and many, many more. We spoke about our extensive work even during wartime, about rescuing animals affected by the war, the danger of continuing live shipments under fire, the climate conference, the fight to enforce the deadlines for banning cruel battery cages in the egg industry, and more. The media also covered our 30-year anniversary celebration and a decade of Challenge 22.
We were active on social media: Our Facebook and Instagram pages reached approximately 5.5 million people and 100 million unique visits. Thank you so much to everyone who commented, shared, and liked – it’s all thanks to you. On YouTube, we published five long videos and 79 shorts and reached more than 3 million views.
We are one of the first channels in Israel to use shorts, with tremendous success and significant support from young users – we even made it onto the list of the ten most viewed trending videos of the week several times! We were also active on TikTok with 130 videos and roughly 18 million views! This year, we also began using AI to spread compassion – check out this awesome video telling a story from the Talmud in the style of a Pixar film! We remain at the cutting edge of technology, using every means necessary to speak up for animals.
The end of the cage age: We pushed for the new regulations to be realized
This year, the ban on ‘forced molting’ came into effect: starving chickens to artificially increase egg-laying. This ban was included in regulations that we fought for two years ago. As part of this cruel practice, chickens laying fewer eggs were starved for two weeks in harsh conditions simulating a bitter winter. The chickens who survived this would start laying more eggs again and increase profitability. Amazingly, thanks to our joint efforts, this abuse is no longer legal in Israel!
The new regulations – a huge victory – prohibit the building of any new caged facilities and include deadlines for the entire egg industry to transition to cage-free facilities. Despite overwhelming public support, there are still some in the industry who insist on trying to leave the country in the dark ages and are upping the pressure to postpone these deadlines. Unfortunately, in the shadow of the war, this was partially successful, and the deadline for keeping chickens in the smallest battery cages was extended by another two years. We are standing strong against these inhumane forces – for full implementation of the regulations and until the last chicken is freed from the confines of these cruel, narrow cages.
As part of the struggle, we are also promoting supplemental bills, including labeling for eggs indicating the type of facility where chickens were kept and a bill designed to ban the import of eggs that do not meet the regulations (because, of course, if we succeed in outlawing this abuse locally, we also need to see a ban on eggs from caged chickens from other countries).
In 2024, we also used corporate responsibility tools to promote the end of caged eggs. We work with 90 organizations from around the world as part of the Open Wing Alliance. We supported international corporations operating in Israel in realizing their commitment to take caged eggs out of their supply chains, and we encouraged local businesses, including restaurants and hotels, to join the movement. In a particularly challenging year, we managed to secure the first and most exciting local commitment from the Norman Hotel, who, after just one meeting with us, understood the importance of this issue and stopped buying caged eggs!
It’s crucial to recognize that life for a hen in a cage-free system is still far from humane. These systems remain industrial operations, designed to exploit hens relentlessly until the end of their lives. The power to end their suffering entirely lies in our hands—by making the choice to stop consuming eggs.
We fought for animal rights on the ground
Our activists ran several actions and special events this year. We took part in Pride parades in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and at those events alone, we registered over 160 new participants for Challenge 22. Dedicated activists in the Tel Aviv group held weekly actions, handing out delicious vegan food and products received as donations, like “Panda” vegan chocolate, “Mama Q,” and “Plenty” vegan cheeses. Convincing people through their stomachs, we sparked changes in habits and a shift towards delicious vegan food. Throughout the year, we held thousands of conversations that opened people’s hearts and minds, registering many new people for Challenge 22. We are expanding to other cities and are looking for dedicated activists to lead new groups. Sign up here!
The Animals Now group at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem held several activities to raise awareness of animal rights, including a well-publicized event collaborating with animal welfare associations to give vegan food tastings on campus. We promoted efforts to increase and highlight vegan offerings in cafeterias and also represented Animals Now on the podcast “Sustainability at the Hebrew University” in an episode about activism for nature conservation and animal rights.
This year, we also worked tirelessly to provide vegan food filled with love to people who had been evacuated due to the war, and thanks to the activists at the Animals Now Food Project, we delivered thousands of comforting home-cooked meals to thousands of people all over the country.
We also held community events, including a strategy seminar attended by many activists, with Aaron Ross, Vice President of Policy and Strategy at the notable organization The Humane League. Aaron shared proven strategies for successful animal rights campaigns against massive corporations in an inspiring and fun event. Later in the year, we held another meeting with Aaron, in which he shared his personal journey in the world of animal rights, his challenges, and his successes. The activists who participated shared that these events strengthened their motivation to take action for the animals on industrial farms today.
Join us for another active year transforming the reality of animals for the better!
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