2019: A Year of Collaboration

At the end of January, ProVeg South Africa, Humane Society International – Africa and Ubuntu Wellness Centre teamed up to bring together a group of leaders from like-minded organisations in the animal welfare, animal protection, veganism and environmental protection fields for a networking evening to discuss ways in which we can collaborate in 2019.

 

Amongst the organisation leaders present were representatives of Greenpop, Humane Society International – Africa, Beauty Without Cruelty, The Fry Family Food Co., the South African Vegan Society, Talking Tree, the Vegan Goods Market, The Yummy Vegan, Plant the Seed, VeganAfrica, Vegan Nation, Ubuntu Wellness Centre, Anonymous for the Voiceless, and the South African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute.

 

The aim of the Networking Evening was to create a space for collaboration and partnership within the various campaigns and events that each organisation has planned for the year ahead. A consolidated calendar encompassing the plans of all those in attendance was presented and many representatives were pleasantly surprised at the number of campaigns and events which display an overlap of interests, causes and investment among the different organisations. This presentation sparked many positive conversations around collaborating with other like-minded organisations to make each event bigger and better by having more than one team involved.

 

A few examples of campaigns that multiple organisations expressed interest include the Vegan Lifestyle Festival, ProVeg’s Heritage Day Braai, the Global March for Elephants and Rhino, World Earth Day, Meatless May, the Veggie Challenge, and World Vegan Month to name a few.

 

A delicious traditional African dinner was prepared by Vegan Africa’s Chancy Chirwa and was accompanied by a short speech which acknowledged his upbringing which centred around delicious, wholesome plant-based meals prepared by his mother in Malawi. These meals consisting heavily of rice, beans and legumes, and Chancy recalled the way that these meals were seen as a poor man’s food, but, looking back, he now realises that he was raised being fed the best food he could possibly ask for, and he is eager to show as many people as possible how bountiful these plant-based African recipes truly are.

 

The evening ended off with the forging of new friendships and a huge potential for partnership and collusion between the various organisations in attendance, with the sentiment that 2019 is the year of collaboration being echoed by many voices in the room. We, at ProVeg South Africa, are looking forward to a year of partnership, teamwork and many successes ahead. As Henry Ford famously said, “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.”

 

Article written by Risha Naidoo for ProVeg South Africa