I hope you and your loved ones are doing well.
You are a big part of Vegan Outreach’s India program, and I’m writing today to tell you how we helped animals in 2020 directly from our staff.

Staff Stories

We couldn’t have done any of this work without supporters like you!
Help us reach our 2021 goals by becoming a monthly sustainer!

With utmost gratitude,

Richa Mehta
Director of Programs, India

It’s been a challenging year for the Vegan Outreach India team. In the last three months, our staff has faced many tough situations—violent riots over the Citizenship Amendment Act, government-imposed internet shutdowns and now the coronavirus pandemic and a nationwide lockdown.

Despite the hardships, we’ve continued to work towards our goal of ending the suffering of animals raised for food. Join me in looking back on some of the best moments from the last quarter.

11,769 Students signed up for 10 Weeks to Vegan

In just three months, we helped 11,769 students get started with their vegan journey. Our team travelled across the country showing videos, giving presentations, and talking to students at college campuses.

We also set a VO world-record along the way by signing up 666 students for 10 Weeks to Vegan in a single day!

Outreach at Youth Events

We participated in many college festivals and youth events this year and educated the students about compassionate living. Many students thanked us for being there and pledged to reduce their use of animal products.

Some of the best events were at colleges in Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Varanasi where we not only reached thousands of students but also met students who have been vegan since meeting us at their campus last year!

Looking Forward

While we’ve paused public events to keep our staff and community safe, we’re continuing our outreach online. The India team is engaging with students, employees, and vegfest attendees via email, phone calls, webinars, and social media to help them make the transition to vegan eating.

We’re already seeing good results and many people have told us that they’re rethinking their lifestyle choices.

Thank you so much for enabling this important work.

We need your support now more than ever to continue speaking up for animals. Please consider supporting some of the India team members!


Donate Now!


Warmly,

Aneeha Patwardhan
Director of Programs, India

The lockdown has ended, and we all are adapting to the new normal. We are still working remotely, but we are not letting the pandemic come in our way when it comes to helping animals and reaching our goals.

I am excited to share some updates about our team’s work and new initiatives during the times of social distancing.

Adopt A College Webinars

Our Adopt A College webinar program is an initiative to connect with the students from volunteer groups like the National Service Scheme and National Cadet Corps. Through virtual sessions, we reach out to thousands of students and help them make compassionate food choices.

In September

We have organized webinars with 20+ colleges.

4000+ students have signed up for the 10 Weeks to Vegan program.

100% of the students who attended our webinar signed up for the 10 Weeks to Vegan program at the National Institute of Technology, Calicut.

Campaign Success

BITS Pilani, Goa Campus, has agreed to reduce their meat and egg consumption by 15% to decrease their carbon footprint. Once the college re-opens, they will switch to plant-based dishes once a week and serve 105,000 meat-free meals every year.

We have written letters to the three other largest BITS campuses—Dubai, Hyderabad, and Pilani to follow BITS Pilani’, Goa, lead and reduce their meat and egg consumption on the campus.

Green Tuesday Initiative Website

Since 2019, we have been helping institutes in India reduce their environmental footprint by replacing meat and dairy products with plant-based food options in their cafeterias. Our campaign website is now live. Please visit and sign up for our newsletter to get blog posts, updates, and resources.

Visit: GreenTuesday.org

Help us reach our 2020 goals! Please donate today for animals in India.


Donate Now!


Warmly,

Richa Mehta
Director of Programs, India

We are very excited to introduce our new version of Compassionate Choices!

Compassionate Choices is our main booklet for non-students – the pictures and content are tailored to an older audience. A number of the pictures in this version were tested and found to be appealing or provoke sympathy for the animals.

We hope you will like the changes!

Order print copies.

To view all of our available booklets, click here.

By Victor Sjodin, VO Director of Outreach

With an eye toward the continued international expansion of Vegan Outreach, I recently embarked on a speaking, learning, and leafleting trip to Europe. The trip was highlighted by my participation at the Conference on Animal Rights in Europe (CARE) in Warsaw, Poland, but that was far from the only fruitful experience.

You may remember that last fall I presented at the International Animal Rights Conference in Luxembourg. Well, I found out this summer that Vegan Outreach’s presence there inspired new activism for animals! Austrian activists—who attended the conference and saw my presentation—are starting a leafleting program modeled after VO’s.

Of course, I wanted to lend any help and encouragement I could, so I was excited to have the opportunity to meet these activists—and many others—at a conference in Warsaw last month.

First, I flew in to Stockholm, Sweden and had meetings and leafleted with the Animal Rights Alliance or Djurrättsalliansen. Flying to Sweden was much cheaper, and I wanted to meet with these great activists anyway and help do some leafleting in Stockholm. I’m glad I did!

After that, I traveled to Warsaw for the Conference on Animal Rights in Europe. I was pleasantly flabbergasted at how vegan friendly Warsaw is. Apparently it has the fifth most vegan restaurants per capita of any city in the world. Who knew?!

While walking around the city, I noticed the word “vegan” in many places. I indulged in several vegan burger establishments and a sushi place. My favorite was Krowarzywa, which has an assortment of epic vegan burgers at low prices.

At the conference, I was one of about 300 animal rights activists listening and giving presentations, networking, and learning from each other.

I heard presentations on a multitude of topics, including The State of Animal Rights in Ukraine, Feminist Challenges and Solutions in the Animal Rights Movement, and The Successful Use of Social Media in Sweden.

My talk about The Art and Science of Personal Advocacy was well attended and well received, leading to numerous conversations afterward.

At the conference, I was able to speak at length and hear about the accomplishments, challenges, and aspirations of activists from Belarus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, the Slovak Republic, and Ukraine, among many others. Many expressed the desire to begin or expand their outreach to promote veganism to the public. I was glad to be able to tell them about what Vegan Outreach does!

It was a thrill to meet many activists I’d only read about or knew from online, and we became fast friends and professional contacts.

Following the conference, I jumped in a car driven by Felix Hnat, and with other activists we hitched a ten-hour ride to Vienna, Austria. Felix is Chairman of the Vegan Society Austria, and a valiant and successful defendant in a long-running political trial that was national news for years in Austria.

Midweek I gave a presentation to members of the Vegan Society Austria about the hows and whys of leafleting.

It was a nice surprise to run into all-star Vegan Outreach intern Doris Schneeberger who took the U.S. Southeast by storm with VO’s U.S. Southeast Outreach Coordinator Yuri Mitzkewich last semester. She even helped with my presentation!

The next day a bunch of us leafleted a busy street, reaching 1,400 people in two hours. It was awesome!

I’m glad there were so many new leafleters and so much enthusiasm for their new activism efforts. And I’m proud that Vegan Outreach could lend our friends in Austria a little boost by sharing our experience and offering encouragement.

Then, life happened, and a bus I was riding in was involved in an accident. This set me back a few days, but Team Austria kept leafleting as scheduled. They are rock stars!

It’s been a productive trip so far, and I will continue on abroad to give a few more seminars to other groups doing outreach. I look forward to seeing more fruits from the CARE conference and meetings that will spare more animals from the horrors so many still have to endure.

Thank you to the Vegan Outreach donors who made this trip and this work possible! You know who you are!

Last summer, the Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG) published a poll measuring the number of adult vegans in the United States. They’ve now conducted 12 such polls between 1994 and 2020, with the most recent one showing the highest percentage of the population as vegan (3%) which translates to the highest number of vegans to date (7.6 million). Possibly more important, there’s been a strong, steady increase in the number of vegans over the course of these polls.

More details are in our spreadsheet, VRG polls, along with a larger version of the graph. You can also read about them on the Vegetarian Resource Group’s website.

By Sam Tucker, Australia and New Zealand Outreach Coordinator

Eating vegan at fast food chains in New Zealand has never been easier! From Dominos to Burger King to Hells Pizza to Subway and more, there are countless vegan fast food options to choose from.

Dominos has a great range of vegan pizzas with mock meats and dairy-free cheese including the vegan El Scorcho, Godfather, Hawaiian, Ham and Cheese and Beef and Onion. They also sell vegan cheesy garlic bread and their regular garlic bread is vegan too!

At Subway, try the Veggie Patty, Veggie Delight or Smashed Falafel (without tzatziki). Choose whatever veggies you like and then choose from any of the following vegan sauces: BBQ, Sweet Onion, Sweet Chilli or Tomato.

The Rebel Whopper at Burger King is entirely plant-based when ordered without mayo and so is the salad burger when ordered without cheese and mayo.

Hells Pizza has a huge range of vegan pizzas including the Vegan Burger, Pride, Damned, Sinister, Mischief, Wrath, Saviour, Mayhem and Brimstone. They also sell vegan nuggets, gluten and dairy-free garlic bread and plant-based ice cream sandwiches.

Burger Fuel has lots of great vegan options too. The Alternative Muscle burger and the V8 Vegan burger are both vegan by default and the V-Twin Vege and Combustion Tofu burgers can both be made vegan on request. They also sell soy thickshakes, kumara fries, potatoes fried, motobites and smash browns, which are all vegan (just ask for vegan aioli with the sides).

Pizza Hut also has a delicious roast veggie and caramelized onion pizza with vegan cheese.

Do you have a favorite vegan fast food option? Feel free to leave a comment below and let us know!