More Vodafone Demo Reports

Sheffield

7 activists held a demo in Sheffield outside the Vodafone shop on Fargate as part of a national day of action against Vodafone. We were calling for people to boycott Vodafone because they donate money to Oxford University, who have abused and killed thousands of non-human animals and are trying to build a new animal research centre. The Vodafone Group Foundation gave £184,494.14 to the university in 2003. We received lots of support from the public and gave out hundreds of flyers letting people know that Vodafone is helping to fund an institution involved in the abuse of animals. For Vodaphone the message can't be clearer: this is only the beginning. We will not stop until you stop funding Oxford University.

Swindon

Local activists took part in the day of action at their local Vodafone shop in Swindon. We had volunteers handing out flyers on the door all day and had a positive response from members of the public, with numerous customers vowing not to shop at Vodafone again. The Vodafone employees seemed to find our presence funny but we found the notably fewer customers in their shop more amusing.

Wolverhampton

The Wolverhampton demo against Vodaphone started at 12 noon when the streets were packed with Christmas shoppers, perfect timing to get the message out about boycotting this company. Colourful and graphic posters illustrated the kind of suffering animals would endure if the Oxford lab is built, while the megaphone was put to full use for the two hours of the demo to make sure everyone knew exactly why we were there.

The demo was a great success with many people being horrified by Vodaphones links to animal abuse. A number of people went straight into the shop to let Vodaphone know that they were not going to buy their products while the financing of Oxford University continued. One group of children were so appalled that they joined in with the demo and enthusiastically gave out leaflets to as many people as they could.

The vodaphone shop didn’t seem to appreciate the demo as they soon closed the doors of the store in an effort to dim the noise of the megaphone that was booming the message of the demo down the main shopping street, so that even those that couldn’t see the demo were well aware of why boycotting this company is the only way to go.

Unfortunately we ran out of both the Vodaphone and SPEAK leaflets as so many people were taking them, but don’t worry Vodaphone, we’ll be back again soon with an even larger amount of leaflets.