Ana Laura Rivarola Oneto is president of the Vegetarian Union of Paraguay - UVPy (South America). She kindly agreed to be interviewed for IVU Online News.
What made you decide to become a vegetarian? When did that happen? How old were you at the time?
My biggest influence for becoming vegetarian was my older sister, Maria, who has been a vegan for almost 20 years now. I was a teenager, and at that time she was already a vegetarian, living in England. She used to send me magazines and books about vegetarianism, and she was the first person that introduced me to the concept that animals are not on earth to be our food and that a plant based diet is also better for our health and that of the planet.
Even though my first motivation was animal compassion, I slowly began to realize that everything was linked: personal health, environment and global sustainability.
You are a leader of a member society of IVU. How long have you been a leader of this organisation?
We began to gather in Asuncion (the capital of Paraguay) as an informal group of veggie friends that met through Orkut (an internet network) in March 2008. Our Vegetarian Union started officially on July 5th, 2008, and in October 2009 we held the first Annual General Meeting when we elected the committee members and approved the rules and regulations for our organization. My term as a president is for two years.
What made you decide to become active in promoting vegetarianism?
I’ve always been a very active person in my community, and when I became vegetarian almost 15 years ago, I started trying to raise awareness among those closest to me, such as my family and friends, about the benefits of such a lifestyle and the big problems that the animal industry causes to the planet.
I like to keep updated on global vegetarian issues through constant research and just by simple actions such as e-mailing thought-provoking articles and making myself available to answer people’s questions whenever they ask. I hope some of them will start thinking differently and consider a change in their diets.
What is it that sustains your desire to be active?
I have no doubt that as vegetarians we can have a positive impact on the health of our planet. Every little action counts, even if we cannot see the results straight away.
My motivation to remain active is having in mind that this whole struggle is not only for the non-human animals whose voices are not heard, but also for our very own species. We are harming our own bodies and our only planet by not considering that our personal food choices have detrimental, long lasting and global consequences.
What is an obstacle that you face in remaining active in promoting vegetarianism? How do you overcome this obstacle?
As the first vegetarian organisation in Paraguay, we often find it difficult to be taken seriously regarding the lifestyle options we advocate. To understand the Paraguayan context, one has to understand that our country not only has a strong tradition of consuming animal products but also an economy based primarily on raising non-human animals for human use. Additionally, Paraguay is a landlocked country with a culturally homogeneous population and a political reality that for decades kept us isolated from the rest of the world and that prevented us from having any significant contact and exchange with other ways of thinking and living.
Although things are changing, it is still a bit difficult to find support or understanding outside our vegetarian community. We know this is part of the process of growing as an organisation; so, we are slowly trying to be known, for example, through positive exchanges with the mass media.
One of our main goals is to show Paraguayan society how good a vegetarian lifestyle can be for our health and the environment, rather than solely pointing at the problems that meat consumption causes or discussing issues such as ethics and compassion for our fellow animals. We believe that this approach is the most suitable for our cultural situation and hope it will open up more minds to the concept of vegetarianism.
What is one of your organisation’s accomplishments that makes you especially proud?
In a short period of time, we have managed to organise a number of different activities and to establish the UVPy as a reference group that is growing very quickly, even though we are people coming from different backgrounds, without knowing each other previously or having anything else in common apart from being vegetarians.
We consider that one of our biggest strengths as an organisation is the fact that we remain independent but at the same time inclusive of the various trends and approaches to vegetarianism.
How do you try to maintain good relations and enthusiasm amongst your organisation’s members?
We do not have many members yet (around 130 so far); so, it is still relatively easy to keep in touch with most of them through the mailing list and the activities we have every month.
This year, we are organising cooking classes, family lunches, vegetarian movie sessions, veggie fairs and the most important activity that is a real challenge for us: a sub-regional seminar about “Vegetarianism and Health” in July. We also had a Vegetarian Camp in February of this year open to non-vegetarians in which we cooked veggie meals and enjoyed outdoor activities for a whole weekend camping next to a lake.
The UVPy has a newsletter that comes out every 3 months with general information about health, environment and ethical topics, plus simple recipes and organisation news. We e-mail it to our members and encourage them to forward it to their contacts. We also print some copies to distribute at universities, health and cultural centres, etc.
Our database of vegetarian/veggie-friendly restaurants and shops is growing and many of them offer special discounts to UVPy’s members that are up to date with their monthly membership fees.
How does your organisation reach out to people who are trying to become veg or who are newly veg?
We are still looking for effective ways to reach people, but so far some things that have been working well for us are the newsletters and our activities open to everyone including non-vegetarians. We consider that the best way to promote vegetarianism is by being in good health ourselves and well informed regarding the key facts about nutrition, health and vegetarianism.
Thank you very much to IVU for this opportunity to share my experience, and my UVPy colleagues and I look forward to more exchanges with our fellow vegetarian activists!
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