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Veganism plays a really big role in our lives. Health is the main word, what comes to mind when we think of eating foods made of plants. Vitamins, anybody?
To be precise, this weekend was an amazing experience!!!!!!!!! All things that matter to a vegan came beautifully together during Berlin Vegan Summerfest!
Being our first vegan festival outside of Estonia, where we attended the Tallinn Vegan Fair in October of 2015 and July 2019 at Tallinn Vegfest, it was a welcomed third experience. Berlin Vegan Summerfest was booming with countless conscious organizations spreading awareness. I have to mention Pro Veg, who organized the festival. The annual festival was full of businesses selling countless vegan products, from cheese, never-ending handouts of Made with LUVE ice-cream bars, and Palmyra, Nature’s Delights which offers the freshest and best dates in town (dates better than Tinder dates!) and of course we can’t forget about the RESTAURANTS! We were constantly salivating!
On Saturday afternoon, we scurried out in time to catch the last of the English lectures, the last being by That Vegan Couple. They are Australian activists whose videos I’ve seen on YouTube. At the end of their lecture, they said that Anonymous for the Voiceless is holding their demonstration in an hour. Imagine a group of wonderful vegan activists with the goal to educate the public at a vegan fair!
As we waited for the much anticipated demonstration, we approached one half of That Vegan Couple for a chat. She shared that they are on a vegan activism tour, and even visited Toronto! Unfortuntely, they gave a similar lecture in my home-city, but it was not received there with the same energy as it was Berlin. My excuse was that awareness in Toronto is already strong. Check out our stories on Instagram to hear a snippet of the lecture, which was impactful.
In our mind, these are local celebrities for justice from AFTW, giving voice to many issues that to us contribute to the Can’t Human Properly feeling that founded this site. To my surprise, Anonymous were just ordinary people who had joined the movement. Their shirts presented proudly ”vegan, environment, and health” division. After seeing them in action, we wanted to become part of them.
Outreach should be positive. Your role is to leave people with a good impression, and inspiration to research more about the price of participation in animal agriculture and cruelty. Don’t loose your cool as the person will go home and recall the negative interaction. People will think badly of vegnism or the cause because it was lost on drama and ego. Oh, and if you are holding a laptop depicting animals in slaughter house, and a child approaches without an adult, put your hand up so we can help the child find their guardian. It’s not that we don’t want the child to see the truth, but not without their guardian around, who may choose to share with them or not.
Paraphrase of the part of the pep talk that I heard.
As you can see, it was an insightful time before they finally organized to form a cube. Some clever signs with slogans and others held a laptop playing slaughterhouse scenes. All had the classic white Anonymous masks, with black facial hair, a smile, and pink rosy cheeks, though some rosier than others.
We had a glimpse of the screens but did not watch the videos in full. As we are already vegans, it is not necessarily for us. As That Vegan Couple characterized it, it is meant for ‘not yet vegans’. Besides, I don’t do well when I expose myself to terror and horror. Kerly only needed a few seconds of the Earthlings trailers three years ago to shift from vegetarianism to veganism. Some hearts are open to veganism with glimpses of slaughter houses.
After all the free samples, there was not much room, but we set our eyes on Réger Burger food truck. We ordered two burgers, a classic for Kerly, and a Cheezy for me. All patties were black bean and seitan based, and although the texture was good, the patty was nothing without the delicious toppings. Sadly the cheese was unimpressive, as it was a bright yellow sauce that wasn’t so memorable. Still, we enjoyed it, topping off mouthfuls with swigs of cold Shanghai matte tea, which we were told by a passerby were geschenkt! (given for free).
As we ate and I chatted in Twi with a Ghanaian mother we had met in line, we started a conversation with two vegan girls sitting beside us, both German, but one is half American. The girls were so cool! We exchanged information, and honestly, meeting them changed the whole game of this weekend! We learned so much, which I’ll share in the next part of our weekend at Berlin Vegan Summerfest.
The second day was not planned. In fact, it wasn’t supposed to even happen! And yet, it had to, because it is was the best part of the whole Berlin Vegan Summerfest!!!! We were inspired to come to The Official Animal Rights March Berlin, because of our new two friends we met at the festival.
After getting to bed past 2 AM, we woke up at 10 AM. When my eyes opened, I knew that we had to go to the march. I don’t know how my mindset shifted so fast. The day before, I was still stuck on the idea that perhaps I shouldn’t join this march. I thought if people are fighting against something, then by universal law it is drawn to us. But actually, I found that attending this march was critical. We have reached a crisis point where our actions or inaction will destroy our species, countless others, and the planet whose skin we live on. I felt nothing but positive energy and bliss at the march, and I know that it came from a higher place. It was like it was meant to be, and was supported by the universe.
Of course, we were a little too late to join the march, as we slept in and it took us an hour to get closer to the march’s start location. Luckily we had our new friends there on time and they shared their location on WhatsApp. So we were able to see in real-time, where they were and we caught the tail of the march in no time after exiting at Eberswalder station in Mitte.
At U Rosenthaler Platz, we all stopped in the center of the wide street, and participated in a mass ‘dying’, to signify the death of the many animals at the hands of slaughterhouses. We literally dropped down on the hot street and laid down on it. It was powerful! The sad drum beat made Kerly cry, while she was thinking of the animals. Of those who have lost their lives, who are in a bad situation or who are abused for human needs at the moment. I and some others wanted to document it, so sat down, but almost all catalysts laid there. Timelessness swept us, and finally, we stopped up and cheered so loudly that we probably woke up she of those
Shout: THERE’S NO EXCUSE
Reply Shout: FOR ANIMAL ABUSE!
Shout: WHAT DO WE WANT?
Reply Shout: ANIMAL LIBERATION
Shout: WHEN DO WE WANT IT?
Reply shout: NOWWWWW!
&
GO VEGAN, GO VEGAN, GO!
We ended each chant with the cheering of course! So glad that the march took place at the same time when Berlin Vegan Summerfest – joining more people for the cause!
Did I say it was hot? Cos the sun of ablaze on us, and we realized on the way home that we had not once felt the need to empty the ol’ bladder all day, till 9 PM when we reached home! Meanwhile, we had had a few liters of liquid.
We weren’t left to entertain ourselves with just our sweet voice, because there was live music, including drums. The march came to a nice halt behind Alexanderplatz, then the speeches began. The one I was totally there for, not that I wasn’t there for the other, but because it was in English, was by That Vegan Couple. They sounded like the day before but on STEROIDS, it was so POWERFUL! I realize now that the high energy of the march made the speech that much more impactful, and it gave me chills/goosebumps in the 32 C sun!
Vegans must do more form of direct action to read awareness. People are needed on the front lines and in supporting roles!
It is not enough to be vegan, otherwise, people trivialize it to mean simply what you eat.
Veganism is not a trend.
Veganism is not a personal choice #veganismisnotapersonalchoice
Connecting with other vegans is crucial because when you feel down about the journey, they will lift you up!
After the march, we drank liters of water, indulged inf Made with LUVE ice-creams. Yeah, it was a hot day, so we both had about 10 sticks. The best surprise was a Taiwanese Vegan Street Food in the culinary section, which filled us fully. Though the portions looked small, they were filling and besides vegan, also gluten-free.
As we said earlier our two new friends from Nuremberg were really helpful for informing us about the cool things happening at the festival. One thing they pointed out was Speed Friendling. Which was basically speed dating, but for vegans and for friends. We had never participated in such an event, so we and other 14 people tried it out and it was fun! 45 minutes of talking and asking questions, definitely left our throat sore. But also, in the end, we had 10 people, who kind of stayed around waiting for something to happen.
Something really happened! We can now say that we have a group of vegan friends, and we have a WhatsApp group to prove it! We hope they stick around on the journey to awakening the planet! Trust that we will discuss our passion of giving voice to animals, the environment, and oppressions, over delicious vegan, thus cruelty-free food!
In the end, this is all you need some entertainment, good food, wonderful people and a cause, which makes you move. We found all that in Berlin Vegan Summerfest and we can soon start calling ourselves vegan activists!
Sounds simple? On top of it all, vegans do not wear leather, wool, silk or any other fabrics derived from animals and also do not use products tested on animals. Vegans are known to be more environmentally friendly, active, healthier and often avoid smoking, alcohol, and drugs.