About the Association's DEI Initiative and the DEI Committee
AAWA STATEMENT ON DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION
To achieve an equitable profession, diversity must be respected and embraced. The road to a just and fair animal welfare field is an ongoing process that requires interminable, sustained effort and continuous learning. As a collective of people with diverse backgrounds and lived experiences, we will provide thoughtful suggestions and practical ways to further engage in advancing animal welfare organization’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. In doing this work we acknowledge animal welfare has historically and predominantly been created and carried out by white people; we commit to lead intentionally by naming and calling out racism in the structures, systems, and culture of animal welfare. Successful DEI work in animal welfare requires internal organizational development as well as external facing strategies that impact society at-large. Both shifts are important, and once cannot occur genuinely and effectively without the other.
THE DEI COMMITTEE
The purpose of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee is to advance the goals and objectives detailed in the AAWA Statement on DEI, to ensure accountability with that statement, and to advocate with urgency and courage for justice, equity, and intentionality to remedy the animal welfare field’s historical inattention to and structures supporting racism and other inequities and injustice. We will build unity of purpose while recognizing and honoring the uniqueness of each organization in our field.