DISPATCHES
Paris Vegan Days were organised by Deborah Brown Pivian and her wonderful team, now of the Gentle Gourmet Institute. Deborah spoke about the importance of visibility in terms of outreach. With that, she was unwittingly instrumental in the birth of the Dublin-based all-volunteer Vegan Information Project (VIP) in 2013.
ROGER YATES
I
n 2010 and 2011, I was honoured to be invited to speak at the inaugural Paris Vegan Day festivals. One of the talks I gave was called “Hello Donald” which was about the best-known of the co-founders of the vegan social movement, Donald Watson. My argument was that, although the movement came
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FORCA VEGAN
into being in during “World War II,” vegan activism in the first decade of the new century was still in its pioneer stage. Indeed, in terms of the history of the vegan movement, the final years of the 20th century and the first of the 21st, marked the beginning of vegan activism as we know it today. The
The VIP was born as “mould breakers.” In terms of street activism, the standard outreach model for decades had been a single fold-down table, leaflets, and a couple of banners. We wanted to change all that, indeed, in the name of visibility. VIP co-founder, vegan, and Russian human rights activist, Irena, had successfully negotiated our way into a prestigious location in Dublin called Temple Bar Square. This is a famous spot in the very heart
