Nicolas, from the Ivory Coast, contributed this report, excerpted below, from the West Africa Vegetarian Congress, 29 Oct – 2 Nov in Ghana, with leadership from IVU Regional Coordinator for Africa, Emmanuel Eyoh. Thanks to Patricia Tricker for translating the report from French - and many thanks to all the donors who responded to the IVU appeal to support this Congress.
Friday 30 October
Approximately 75 of us met in the centre of Accra, the capital of Ghana. Everyone was wearing a Vegetarian Association of Ghana T-shirt - Ghanaians, Nigerians, Ethiopians, Cameroonians, etc. Togo put up a good show with a delegation of nine students, all vegan, representing the brand new and very enthusiastic University of Lomé Association of Vegan and Vegetarian Students (AEV-Togo), which already has about forty members.
We marched, carrying banners and distributing flyers, for about an hour to the Health Ministry. A car with loudspeakers led the demonstration. On the Health Ministry was a sign at least 12 square metres in size urging people to eat more fruit and vegetables and less meat.
For lunch, we went to ASSASEPA (www.ivu.org/africa/ghana-vag/index.html), one of the five or six vegetarian restaurants in Accra. Afterwards, we distributed food at an orphanage.
Saturday 31 October
That morning, we set up tarpaulins and chairs at Kwame Nkruma Memorial Park. This large green park right in the city centre is the ideal place for a veggie and eco conference. The talks started at about 10.30 in front of some 250 to 300 people. 50 yards away from the speakers, in the same park, around twenty stalls had been set up by producers of veggie food, owners of veggie restaurants, practitioners of traditional African herbal medicine and Esperantists. People kept arriving, and we can reasonably estimate that 500 people visited the stalls and listened to at least some of the talks.
Speakers included:
- the former chairman of Ghana's supreme court: 81 years old, vegetarian
for 50 years
- Emmanuel Eyoh, Nigeria, IVU Regional Coordinator for Africa
- Dr Anteneh Roba, chair of www.ifundafrica.org
For the full report and lots of photos go to http://www.ivu.org/africa/ghana-2009.html
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