A fever of Going Vegan has been sweeping over Cardiff with a whole range of diversified stores, vegan food as well as informative and inspiring events on animal rights and protection.
Rising interest in vegan products has given thousands of people a golden chance to experience an original vegan life style in Cardiff last week.
Organised by Viva!, an animal protection charity, the event attracted 2,046 people with a wide range of stalls with vegan-related items and activities according to statistics from the ticket office.
“The vegan market in the past years has just exploded and our events are definitely getting bigger. This year we have over 85 stores here, which is much larger than the Bristol event in last year November,” said Sophie Delarny, the event manager of this year’s vegan festival tour.
As a famous charity organization fighting for animal rights, ending animal suffering and promoting vegan lifestyle, Viva! is aiming to expand its vegan festival scale and is putting it into practice.
Participants would get a cheerful and warm introduction of the vegan festival at the reception.“As an animal campaign charity, our aim is to end the suffering of animals. So one of our strategies is to promote veganism in as many ways as possible and festival seems to be the most positive way to do that. We want the non-vegans to come to this event and see all the amazing food they can eat and show them every positive aspect of being a vegan,” Ms Delarny added.
Viva! Life magazines presented on the table are packed full of information about latest campaigns, vegan recipes, vegan lifestyle articles, etc.The Cardiff Vegan Festival got lots of positive information and support from the public. Roger Roberts is one of those who is contributing to the preparation of this festival. Mr Roberts is a cyclist who is in September 2017celebrating a third-of-a-century (34 years) of being vegan by cycling 969 miles from Land’s End to John O’Groats for Viva!
Roger Roberts said: “Viva! is a good defender of animals. Obviously, they make people aware of the suffering of animals that goes on. Viva! just seems to be a good organisation to support.”
Roger Roberts and his bicycle went through an arduous journey for his fundraising project.Guy Harper, another big supporter of Viva!, started a voiceless challenge to speak up for any beings – people or animals – who cannot speak up for themselves. His challenge has been a wonderful demonstration of what individual who cares about animals and the planet can do to raise awareness of the reasons why people go vegan.
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Everything vegan you can imagine could be found in Cardiff Viva! Vegan Festival: from cruelty-free cosmetics, all sorts of vegan food to NGOs, cuddly toys as well as books and magazines. The whole city hall was filled up with an inspiring atmosphere of “Go Vegan”.
These soaps are all made with non-animal materials.pleased with my @AcornVegetarian new #cookbooks from @vivacampaigns @CityHallCardiff #veganfestival #wales the #truffles were #awesome too pic.twitter.com/bCXxdsepU2
— shaheen (@SeasonalShaheen) February 4, 2017
“I’ve been vegan for 12 years. To me, veganism is for animal rights. It’s about drawing attention fighting for this,” said Alex CF, an artist, who sells aggressive T-shirts to raise fund for animal rights and animal welfare charities, “I feel like if I believe in this but I’m not doing this, then I’m laying myself down; I’m a hypocrite. That’s why I become a vegan and I never look back.”
“It’s a four-hour work to make these T-shirts every day. But it’s fun and I really enjoy it,” said Alex.For those who are vegetarian or who are just on their way of going vegan, this festival is a great feast to get every information, inspiration, support and guide that you would need to be a vegan.
Gillian Browning, a nutritionist and a vegetarian for nearly 20 years who lives in South Africa most of time, said: “I’m a vegetarian with a meat-eating family. I do this mainly for animal rights and that’s really hard to stay this. I think you need to be able to decide for yourself and not listen to other people tell you what to do. I believe you can feel what’s right for you.”
New blog post #Cardiff #VivaVeganFestival @CityHallCardiff @vivacampaignshttps://t.co/uchhEwSsZD
#Wales #Cymru #vegetarian #vegan pic.twitter.com/cE4oUezY9S— shaheen (@SeasonalShaheen) February 6, 2017
A series of talks were held in one of guest rooms to give required information and professional guide to the participants. As Ms Delarny stated, this festival is aiming to inspire as many people as possible and change the way people think about veganism.
Tony Wardle, the associate director, was giving a lecture on Dairy, Beef and Bullshit.There is no better place than this vegan festival for a newborn vegetarian. “I started to be a vegetarian after I came to the UK. It’s kind of like I got educated by the cultural and social environment here. Being a vegetarian is extremely hard in China because we don’t have such awareness, we don’t really understand what veganism means to the animals, the environment and our own health,” said Yiling Shi, a postgraduate at Bristol University, traveling to the Cardiff Viva! Vegan Festival in the early morning.
She added: “I’m determined to be a vegan one day but I need to take it slow. My dream is to set up my own farm in the future and I got this idea from a raw vegan Alice, a famous Youtuber. And I hope I can get something inspiring on this festival today as well.”
The Cardiff Viva! Vegan Festival was the first stop of the year-long on-going tour of the Viva! Vegan Festival in UK. Want to be a vegan as well? Check their homepage for more festivals and events and get yourself started: