The WACPAW/EonA team from Ghana is in Uganda this week and participated in the Annual Vegan Festival organized by the Ugandan NGO “The Vegan Village Society (VVS)”. Veganism is quite big in Uganda to protect the forests (wood is used to cook in Uganda and vegetables can be prepared much faster (just 2 logs required) than meat which requires a lot of time and thus wood.
Our team (Sorf and Lukman) had the opportunity to talk to the over 500 participants made of teachers, vegetable farmers, school children, livestock farmers, butchers and the general public about our work at trying to decrease animal suffering at slaughterhouses and livestock markets in Ghana. The team also gave a talk about animal sentience and welfare. We highlighted the need to take care of the climate which is threatening the welfare of everyone if more extreme drought, erosion and deforestation is caused by livestock farming. The festival is a celebration of the cultivation of more and more vegetables in Uganda to feed its people and less meat on the plates for environmental sustainability. A vegan dish was prepared within 5 minutes to demonstrate how easy it is to prepare a nutritious meal without animal protein. Plant – based dishes are quite traditional in many countries in Africa, where sometimes fish or snails were added for flavour but rarely farm animal meat. A plaque of appreciation to EonA and WACPAW was presented to us by the Director of the Vegan Village Society for helping make the program a success.
We would like to thank the Vegan Village in Uganda for their invitation and taking care of the health of their local communities. The Vegan Village has facilitated Women Vegan Groups all over the country by distributing vegetable seeds and teaching gardening, in exchange it allows them to earn money by running a vegetable business.
A 6-minute spot about this Vegan Festival was broadcasted on the Ugandan TV news!
