By Akua Oppong
My time at The Vegetarian Useful resource Group has been a satisfying and distinctive expertise. I’ve had the chance to discover my pursuits, study group outreach, and join with impactful individuals.
A number of weeks earlier than my internship formally began, VRG was beneficiant sufficient to supply me the chance to attend the Animal and Vegan Advocacy Summit with them. It was a very enriching expertise as I had the chance to attach with vegan activists, professionals, and corporations.
One of many largest tasks I labored on throughout my internship was an article, meal plan, and recipes describing Ghanaian meals and tradition. This mission was necessary to me as a result of I’ve all the time needed to do issues to assist promote veganism and wholesome consuming among the many Ghanaian and African communities in the USA. I really feel that my work on the mission will assist Ghanaians discover methods to eat their cultural meals in a wholesome, fulfilling means, in addition to anybody else who could need to attempt it. I collaborated with Reed Mangels, PhD, RD, a dietitian who works with VRG. Working with Reed was wonderful as she supplied particular, detailed suggestions. This mission has impressed me to proceed sharing vegan sources and recipes with my group.
VRG has additionally allowed me to achieve expertise in lots of elements akin to networking, interviewing, writing articles, and reviewing occasions and merchandise. The AVA summit was an excellent vessel for networking and I met many wonderful individuals from around the globe. I had the pleasure of interviewing Nancy, an distinctive scholar who has advocated for vegan meals at her highschool, and met a younger man from Ghana who’s vegan and created a startup firm that promotes animal advocacy in Ghana. In the course of the internship I just about noticed a category by Kara Corridor, a nutritionist who teaches vegan cooking and diet lessons at Christopher Place, a residential employment academy for previously homeless males in Baltimore.
I additionally performed an interview with Dr. Peterson, a vegan dietitian and professor at Morgan State College, who I wrote about for a “Vegan Motion” entry for Vegan Journal. Nadely, one other VRG intern, and I, additionally had the prospect to interview and document one another, describing our internships. I additionally had the prospect to evaluate a vegan pizza product for a Veggie Bit and a vegetarian Indian restaurant for VRG’s e mail e-newsletter.
For an exploratory task I acquired the prospect to look at starches which might be eaten in cultures around the globe, and by studying VRG articles I discovered about worldwide veganism, eat vegan on a funds, conventional, cultural, and spiritual vegan and vegetarian practices, what “plant-based” actually means, and extra. It was good to see the various completely different vegan recipes which might be made in African international locations together with Morocco, Ethiopia, and South Africa.
The primary group well being ability that I used to be in a position to apply throughout my internship have been types of qualitative research. Qualitative research are often performed by interacting with individuals, and I used to be ready to take action by means of interviews. I then used the data or “knowledge” I collected from the interviews or my experiences to put in writing articles for the VRG weblog.
Some methods by which this internship has formed my future consists of fueling my need to work with individuals in communities, and probably even a nonprofit group like The VRG. I’ve been in a position to see how nonprofits work and the way I can discover a profession in it. I sit up for searching for comparable alternatives sooner or later.
General, the individuals at The VRG are an excellent, informative, real group of people who find themselves keen about what they do and need to share their ardour and data of veganism and vegan sources with the world. It has been an excellent honor to work with them this summer season for my internship.
For extra details about VRG internships, see https://www.vrg.org/scholar/index.php
To assist VRG internships, donate at vrg.org/donate or be a part of at https://www.vrg.org/member/2013sv.php
