We believe that the best way to promote veganism, in Scotland and in general, is to educate people about veganism, about why it is the only right thing to do if they think animals matter, and about how to be vegan in a non-vegan world, practically speaking. Our approach is postitive, pro-vegan education and information sharing.

 

We believe that everyone should be vegan. We do not promote anything less than veganism, as anything less than veganism involves participation in exploitation and cruelty. Many people go straight to vegan, from non-vegan. For many people all they need is the information about what really lies behind their food and other products, to see that it’s wrong and to stop immediately. With the resources on this web site a non-vegan should be able to decide to go vegan and, using the information on our practical pages, go about their newly vegan lives avoiding animal products.

 

We realise it is an adjustment and we appreciate that it involves change. It is a learning process and mistakes may be made. There is no condemnation or judgement here, only support, resources and assistance. We encourage people to join online and local vegan groups so that they can continue to learn. If people decide that they are going to gradually cut out animal products rather than simply making the decision to go vegan, that is a matter for them, and the resources on this website should provide them with the information and support they need.

 

 

Single Issue Campaigns

 

We promote veganism and we avoid what are now commonly referred to as “single issue campaigns”. The best example of a single issue campaign is the campaign against fur. In the 1990’s the large animal groups spent a lot of time and resources targetting fur, singling it out for particular (brutal) condemnation. Models posed naked with the slogan “we would rather go naked than wear fur”. Red paint was thrown on fur wearers in what was a very sexist campaign. It became unfashionable to wear fur, for a time.

 

Gradually the models were seen wearing fur again, and bit by bit it became more acceptable to be seen on the street in fur. Now it is back to being commonplace. If you visit London you will see it everywhere. The campaign did not work. It didn’t work because it didn’t get to the root of the issue. It didn’t educate people in the fact that animals are sentient (they feel and are self-aware) and that therfore all cruelty and exploitation of animals is wrong. The people who turned against fur hadn’t stopped eating animals. If it was still acceptable to kill animals for the sake of their tastebuds, why would it be unacceptable to kill an animal to wear their skin?

 

Single issue campaigns send inconsistent messages, telling people one particular form of animal use is wrong but others are fine, and fail to get to the root of the issue. No real lasting change can come from single issue campaigns. That is why we promote veganism.

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How you can support GVS

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GVS is a not for profit volunteer group. We are all vegans who realised at different times in our lives that it was wrong to use and kill non-human animals, and then realised the best thing we could do for animals is help others to recognise that and go vegan. GVS is not an organisation; there is no funding and no salaries, there's just hard work by volunteers.

Happily, lots of people are interested in getting involved. This is magic.

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The main way you can help is by becoming regular volunteers on our vegan information stalls. GVS Information Stalls

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VEGAN INFORMATION STALLS

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We've been doing regular stalls in Edinburgh and Glasgow for over a year and a half now and have learned a lot in that time. We know what works and we know how we want our stalls to be run. We're not controlling for the sake of it, but to ensure the stalls work well.

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There's an optimum number of volunteers on any one stall and a balance to be struck in terms of regulars and new people who are learning about our approach.

 

There's also a learning curve in terms of getting to know our approach. The best way to learn is by going to a stall and buddying up with a regular, but we've also found that it's best if new volunteers have had a chance to read up on our guidelines and some of our recommended reading before coming to our stalls.

 

For all these reasons we organise all our volunteers through our volunteers group: https://m.facebook.com/groups/1498289253812147

 

If you'd like to volunteer (either at our regular stalls in Edinburgh and Glasgow or at one of our pop ups) please ask to join that group, read the pinned post and ask any questions there. The whole point of the group is to support one another. We have advocacy meetings too, where we talk through our approach and some of the frequently asked questions on stalls. We want to give our volunteers the support they need to feel confident on our stalls.

You may be keen to have a stall in your home town. If so please join the group and post about that so that we can work with you to make it happen. What we'd like ultimately is to have regular GVS stalls all over the country. We realise people may need help with that as it can be difficult in smaller towns.

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OTHER WAYS TO HELP

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You may not be able to help on our stalls, but be keen to advocate for veganism in your day to day life. If you'd like to join the volunteer group for support in doing that please feel free. The more of us out there advocating for justice for animals the better.

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There are other ways you can help behind the scenes. Send us vegan menus/pics of vegan options we can share. Help us keep our list of vegan friendly venues up to date. Offer us the use of your skills in design, graphics, photography, sketching or whatever.

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Share our posts and link to our website on posts you do about vegansim (www.goveganscotland.com)

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And if you would like to chip in towards our costs (that would be wonderful) that can be done by:

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- making a donation direct to our account (as a one off or regular payment): account number: 92231220, sort code: 40-20-44;
- via PayPal: goveganscotland@gmail.com;
- and/or by buying from our support store: https://www.goveganscotland.com/gvs-support-store

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Every penny goes towards our advocacy volunteer work.

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Thank you! 😃