Dim Kailaris was raised in a Greek family, with strong ties to culture and traditions including eating meat, dairy and eggs in every meal. He could never understand people being vegan, until seven years ago when he watched Earthlings. Dim saw what happens inside slaughterhouses and went vegetarian. Two months later, he learnt about the egg and dairy industry and went vegan from an ethical standpoint.
Being vegan was not enough, Dim needed to speak up about what was happening to animals, so he became active. Initially, Dim started posting on his social media and attended organised events such as protests, vigils and street outreach.
Dim recognised the importance of slaughterhouse footage in his own vegan journey and got involved in investigation work inside slaughterhouses and factory farms. He knew how powerful the footage was, so entered facilities in Australia, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.
Being a teacher, Dim tried educating students about the realities of where their food comes from, however he quickly received backlash from schools and parents. Dim recently moved into full time animal rights work, which allowed him to focus on creating dontwatch.org
dontwatch.org includes a 6 minute video showing the realities of the animal agriculture industry. During the first 48 hours of it's launch, dontwatch.org had over 100,000 views and now averages 2000 views per day. The website contains recipes, links to Challenge 22, activism materials and the ability for people to contact the organisation for support.
In this episode, Dim also shares his experiences in conducting investigation work, disruptive action and activists working together to achieve total animal liberation.
https://dontwatch.org/
https://www.instagram.com/dim.stagram/
https://www.instagram.com/dontwatchofficial/
https://www.facebook.com/kailaris
