NORTH EAST ANIMAL RIGHTS

TYNESIDE VEGAN & MUSIC FESTIVAL – in conversation with North East Animal Rights founder, Anna Malia

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Anna Malia, Ocean Rd, South Shields. pic. Alikivi Feb 2026

Anna set up North East Animal Rights (N.E.A.R) to campaign and educate about veganism and animal rights. They have around 30 members with branches in Newcastle and Teesside.

On 16th May N.E.A.R are hosting a Tyneside Vegan and Music Festival from 11am-3.30pm at Northumbria University Student Union, Newcastle.

‘We’re expecting the event to be busy. It seems the more we do the bigger and busier we get. We create a family vibe so we get all ages coming along’ explained Anna.

‘This is the seventh Tyneside Vegan festival which first started in Gateshead where the music was so popular that we decided to have live music playing as a regular feature. A lot of the music is original and it will be on through the day, all of the performers are vegan. They will be up on the stage and the main traders will be arranged around the hall.’

‘We try to offer an equal balance between food, ethical traders, music and social justice. It’s all aspects of animal rights as well as the environment – for example we have Climate Action Newcastle coming along as well as lots of charities and animal rights groups.’

‘We hope to attract new vegans who can come and meet others. It’s also a place where long term vegans like myself can safely come to and know there is going to be plant based food stalls with no animal products. Some festivals don’t offer that.’  

‘People can bring their dogs have a browse of the stalls, eat some food and listen to music. A great day out. We also have a few stalls encouraging people to get involved in activism which can be scary for people if they look on-line, but we offer face to face contact which is important so they can meet the people they may end up doing activism with.’

‘I’ve been vegetarian since I was 14 and went vegan about 20 year ago. If people are interested in being vegan, I’d say research it first. Some say veganism is extreme – but there’s nothing extreme about not wanting to use or eat animals. Over the years I’ve seen a big difference in attitudes to veganism and the availability of plant based food.’

‘Veganism is a lifestyle, it’s what you wear and where you shop. A vegan wouldn’t have a leather settee or leather shoes. It’s as far as practical you can go with it – it can be hard living in a (currently) non-vegan world seeing constant adverts everywhere for animal body parts but being vegan itself is actually very easy. It’s not about eating free range this or grass fed that or buying locally. Whether you’ve bought locally or not I’m sure it doesn’t make any difference to the animal when they are on the kill floor.’

‘We actively promote veganism others might call it preaching – and they do. But when you think something is wrong you are morally obliged to do something about it. You act against it or for it. There is a lot of research which shows that if you are going to be violent towards animals you will be violent towards humans.’

‘We are an educational campaigning and pressure group so do not get involved in direct actions although we do support and attend protests and actions by other groups. We are non-violent and non-violence and peace is at the core of veganism – it’s the ultimate peace movement.’

Link to Anna’s interview (2021) with Ronnie Lee co founder of the Animal Liberation Front. Ronnie is a lifelong animal rights campaigner.

NEAR Interview with Ronnie Lee

Anna explained ‘Before social media, groups were forced to take more direct action to raise awareness of cruelty to animals and sometimes this led to them being put in prison. But activists are still being criminalised for animal right actions (and social justice actions) and while we would never condone violence towards an individual, we do support challenging the laws where they need to be. And there are many current cases of where the laws should be and are being challenged.’

‘A classic example of this is the fox hunting laws which are now being reviewed again as they have not worked in the way they were intended and sabs are still being assaulted on a weekly basis. And another is the reclassification of animal testing facilities as life sciences infrastructure in an attempt to stop protests – this is currently being challenged in the courts.’

‘What is our aim? We want to end all animal use. It’s not just about not eating animals it’s about not testing on them, not wearing them, not using them for entertainment, it’s about not seeing them for our benefit.’

To join N.E.A.R contact @northeastanimalrights on social media or contact @tynesideveganandmusicfestival

Links to previous interviews >>>

MEAT IS MURDER – with North East Animal Rights founder Anna Malia | ALIKIVI UK : NORTH EAST MUSIC & CULTURE

BAD EGGS – with Anna Malia founder of North East Animal Rights | ALIKIVI UK : NORTH EAST MUSIC & CULTURE

Alikivi   March 2026

BAD EGGS – with Anna Malia founder of North East Animal Rights

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Sadly, some schools are still using egg-hatching programmes as a misguided way to educate children on life cycles of animals or using them as a treat to the children in their care explained Anna.

As more and more schools realise the problems these awful programmes cause, the companies who exploit these live young animals have extended their business model to include care homes where they aim to use them in so-called enrichment activities for residents.

Anna added…Despite the companies saying they will take back and home all unwanted chicks and ducklings produced from these programmes, the reality is very different. Even in the small print of the contracts they say that hirers have to be realistic about the fact that ‘some’ will end up as food and males will be culled.

Male chicks turn into very noisy cockerels and every year rescues are swamped with both male and female chicks and ducklings who are abandoned once they grow out of their useful ‘cute’ stage.

Our local wildlife and domestic animal rescue centre ‘Pawz For Thought’ who are based in Sunderland, are inundated every year with abandoned chicks from egg-hatching programmes.  

A spokesperson for Pawz said “Every year we are inundated with calls from concerned parents of pupils who aredoing hatching projects. School hatching projects are often presented as education, but the reality is far from kind.”

“Chicks are hatched in the name of learning, yet the process has become a form of lazy teaching. For a few weeks, children view these animals as entertainment—then the chicks are handed away, this teaches young people that living beings are disposable and exist for our pleasure.”

“Every year, we are asked to take in chicks to save them from being culled. Around half of all chicks hatched are cockerels, and there are simply no homes for them. They face a terrible fate.”

“Schools often believe they are rehoming them to willing parents, but with no follow-up, many unwanted cockerels eventually end up dumped once they mature. This cycle of suffering must stop.” 

Anna said…As part of their Animal Protection Charter, South Tyneside Council have contacted all of their schools and asked them not to use these programmes. They confirmed recently that none of their primary schools will book these programmes again making them an ‘egg-hatching programme free borough’!

Cllr Judith Taylor Chair of the Animal Protection Charter Working Group at South Tyneside Council said “South Tyneside Council is committed to the highest standards of animal welfare. We have taken decisive action by contacting all our schools to urge them not to use egg-hatching programmes.”

“We believe there are far more compassionate and educational ways to teach children about life cycles, and we encourage all educational settings to consider the welfare of animals in their care.”

Anna added…These programmes bear no resemblance to the actual life cycle of chicks and ducklings – they are not hatched in sterile metal and plastic incubators for a start. They do not have the warmth and love from their mother and of course they don’t show students where the birds end up and how they are slaughtered for food. 

What are we doing now? We are currently campaigning across the North East and also have a group working in the North West and a group in the West Midlands coming on board. We want schools and care homes to know the misery these programmes cause.

We are also encouraging people to contact their MP and the Education Secretary to ask them to update the curriculum to remove the suggestion of egg-hatching programmes as an educational tool.  

Thank you to South Shields artist Sheila Graber for the animation.

For further information about the work of North East Animal Rights contact >>>

Facebook @northeastanimalrights

Instagram @northeastanimalrights

TikTok @northeastanimalrights 

Bluesky @neanimalrights.bsky.social

Threads @northeastanimalrights

North East Animal Rights – YouTube

https://linktr.ee/northeastanimalrights

Alikivi   November 2025

ART FOR ART’S SAKE in conversation with animator Sheila Graber

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Meeting up with contributors to this site I’ve asked how they survive in the arts. Some talk of persistence and others simply being obsessed by it. I think to give yourself a good chance you’ve got to be prepared to work on it day in day out basically 24/7/365 days a year.

85 year old Sheila featured on this site in June 2018 where she talked about spending her life in art – so she was the perfect person to ask.

Surviving in the arts is for me going with the flow. I believe in my Mam’s saying ‘Every day in every way in everyday I’m getting better and better’ particularly when you are feeling crap or when things have gone wrong. In the arts you need this saying because there are times when things just don’t happen for you. Tempered with that my Dad used to say ‘worse things happen at sea’! So never, never, give up. Keep positive and keep going.

After attending Art College Sheila then went to Birmingham School for Training Art Teachers in 1961.

That was the best thing to happen to me. I was shown that everyone is an artist in their own way and it’s your job as an art teacher to bring it out. It’s about giving something positive to people in their lives.

I first taught art in comprehensive schools in South Shields and by 1970 I was divorced and had time to play so bought a super 8 cine camera. Play is very important plus having a messy room or studio where no one tidies up after you!

My first messy place was at home in South Shields working at a desk looking out onto our little garden. Later it was a studio in the Pilot Office overlooking the river Tyne. Then by the mid 70s I got a break in animation.

I was contacted by an agent for World TV who sold the short films I made globally. She later commissioned me to animate 10×10 minute ‘Just So Stories’. The actual process of animation can take a long time to produce minutes on video so the only way I could produce this was to give up teaching – which I did in 1980.

Sheila animating Frame by Frame for World TV and her Mam crocheting for a local shop – a true cottage industry.

Sheila also works with various charities, the last post features Anna Malia and North East Animal Rights, how did you get involved with them?

When I lived in Ireland I saw an incident, not to go into it here too much as it’s really upsetting, but there was a field of cows and a calf that broke free from the herd. It was about how it was dealt with by the farmer that really affected me. I thought if I get the chance I would do something for you – for that calf.

I heard a song by North East musician Jen Stevens, loved it, and thought that would really work with images. I asked Jen if I could use it and she said yes. We put it out and Anna Malia from North East Animal Rights got in touch and we took it from there.

Link to Jen Stevens song & video >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMDkdZ3TaEk

Sheila is currently working on a book about George McVay, a little known artist who lived from 1902-1967. Former Shields Gazette journalist Janis Blower is in the process of editing it.

George was a very good photographer which accounts for the very large detail in his pictures. His style of painting was very photographic. When I was 8 my mam bought a set of his prints that the Gazette had commissioned and I loved looking at them like kids look at ipads now. For a long time I done plasticene models of them.

All his life he drew some amazing illustrations of Shields and surrounding areas. Some people may recognise his black and white drawings, very clear, very precise everything from the old Town Hall to the piers, the river and the Groyne. In the book Janis Blower will be adding underneath a description and history of George’s picture.

In his early days I gather he worked at Readhead Shipyard, he was studying planning, design and engineering. His Dad was mayors secretary at South Shields Town Hall and was a good photographer. It’s thought he said to his son that he should work in the Town Hall and he eventually did, he was employed in the ratings department.

Out of the goodness of his heart he’s done drawings for presentations at the town hall. There are some amazing manuscripts, whatever was required he could do it even when people leave. He also done commissions for the Shields Gazette.

The Shields museum have some in their store. He has stuff in the Hancock and Discovery museum, Newcastle. He did a showing at the Laing Art Gallery and down in London but all track of that is lost. Unfortunately, nobody has given him the recognition that he deserves.

What I’ve found over the years is that he and I have followed parallel tracks. We have both done a lot of work for charity and both drawn the most popular buildings and views in Shields because we love the place.

To contact Sheila check out her official site at >>>

Products — SHEILA GRABER ART

Alikivi  July 2025