It is good that this education has reached many citizens
GRANTS The Vegan Society Grant is open to individuals and grassroots organisations. It exists to support projects which will encourage nonvegans to go vegan and stay vegan. Here you can read about two of the projects which the grant has funded this year.
Radio programmes in Sengerema district, Tanzania, by Mohammed Hammie About the project My project was to run 10 radio programmes aired on Sengerema FM radio in Tanzania, to educate local people about veganism. We chose to use local media because radio in Tanzania plays a crucial role in people’s lives.
Where it all started I reached out to The Vegan Society because I wanted to help my community with their excessive meat consumption. In January 2021, Minister of Livestock and Fisheries of Tanzania Mr Mashimba Ndaki instructed the people of the Sengerema district in Mwanza region not to eat meat, especially pork, and instead to focus on vegan products to support their health. As a journalist, the minister’s statement opened my eyes, and I decided to try to educate my community. I found The Vegan Society, who inspired me to change my eating habits. When you go vegan, you can still eat all your favourite foods. ‘Meat is not environmentally friendly’ was my slogan for the radio programmes. This idea is something new I brought to my country.
How it went During the airing of the radio programmes, listeners got a chance to call and send text messages and contribute their thoughts. The listeners who provided a testimony or made a fabulous point about veganism got a gift of a T-shirt. This helped to encourage others to participate. The project managed to interview 47 citizens in different villages in the Sengerema district and reached 650,000 listeners.
Getting help from volunteers
Volunteer Joyce Manga 22 | The Vegan Issue 4 2021
Most of the volunteers I recruited were local journalists. After talking to radio station manager Mr Mahuba, I conducted a one-day session for teaching these four journalists about the importance of having radio programmes that encourage people to go vegan. These journalists helped raise awareness of the slogan in their daily shows, reminding people to listen to the radio show every Saturday and documenting key points from the calls and texts that focused on veganism.
