By Déborah Dauly

This article will describe my experience with creating a vegan club as an engineering student in France.

The idea of this club came because I wanted to participate in more actions to promote animal rights. At that time, I was vegan for seven years and veganism became my way of life, just that. I did not have the feeling of fighting for animals. This is when I thought I had to join an association! The problem was that my courses were quite difficult and I did not have lots of time to spare. I was so looking for an association near my school to not waste time in commuting. And then I heard about Sentience: a national association of activists for animal rights. Sentience is a national student association fighting for a better world for animals. If you are interested, you can find their website in English here: https://asso-sentience.net/?lang=en. The idea came here: Why wouldn’t I create Sentience in Toulouse, the city where I am studying?

I had two possibilities: Create an association (like Sentience ) or create a club. The difference is that the club belongs to an association: there is less freedom but it is easier to manage. As veganism still suffers from a bad image in France, we took the decision to create a club attached to the student association of our college. In France, to create a club, you should have at least two people: a president and a treasurer. I was lucky, as two of my friends were enthusiastic with this idea and so, after some papers signed, the club was created. With the agreement of Sentience organizers, we called our club Sen’tience and I became the president. The advantages of being a club is that it is easier to become known at the college (because we are attached to the student association of the school). Moreover, we can ask for school grants or financial support to organize events or activities

As the association Sentience says, “Animals are sentient beings: They feel emotions, are conscious of the world in which they live, and are capable of subjective and abstract thought processes.” The name itself delivers a message: animals do feel emotions. After choosing the name of Sen’tience, we had to create a logo which represents the club. The secretary drew it with our ideas combined: the logo represents three animals living in different environments. It characterizes one who lives in water, another on the ground, and the last one in the air. The idea is that whoever they are, wherever they live,  animals should be treated equally and have the same right. It is a message against speciesism. 

In France it is easier and easier to be vegan (vegan products and restaurants are much more present than before). Despite this, there is still a long way to go before everyone accepts veganism and I do not talk about changing their consumption. Some people have difficulty considering that a person could be vegan. That is why the main goal of the club is to show a positive image of veganism. Another objective of the club is to demonstrate that alternatives to animal exploitation exist!

• Sale of Vegan food (especially cakes)
  This activity permits people who do not have the chance to try vegan pastries to do it. In my college, food selling is something that needs an administration approval, but which is quite quick and easy to organize. We do it during class breaks and it always attract lots of people. It is a great activity to start with because it permits vegan food to become known and to demonstrate that vegan cakes can be as good as any cakes. Students and even teachers can take this moment to ask us about the ingredients. A question that often comes is: how do you replace eggs? This is why, every time we sell pastries, we come with a binder filled with several sheets: how you can replace egg, milk, meat… We have also lots of questions about the nutrition: where protein and iron can be found in a plant-based food diet. It is important that everyone who participates in the selling in the club has some knowledge about veganism and responses to questions that are often asked. All food selling is always prepared by members of the club. One time, we had the chance to sell unsold cakes from a vegan restaurant. Do not hesitate to contact vegan companies close to your university: they are often happy to see these kinds of initiatives and may help you!

• Quiz
  This is an efficient tool according to the students. The principle is simple. We asked students a few questions linked to veganism. Subjects can be animal’s condition, environmental issues, health, ethics in the world, etc. If they have a majority of good answers, they can have a free slice of cake. If they have too many wrong answers, they can take another quiz. We had really good feedback about this: student were highly surprised about some answers (mostly about animal’s terrible conditions). Some of them, after successfully respond to one quiz, asked to do another one just to learn more about the subject.
  
• Debate
  To encourage dialogue, we also organized debates. The past year, we had the chance to have a philosophy club and we organized a debate with them. The subject was the following: Do animals have a conscience? Is it ethical to consume products from animals? We were actually surprised about how open minded the students were! Some members of the philosophy club had more knowledge about animals than Sen’tience’s members. Most of them thought that consumption of animal-based products were needed for our health. It permits us to tell them that the only supplementation we need is B12 but that all other nutrients can be found in plant-based food! Finally, it was a great experience for both clubs. This debate lasted three hours. I personally experienced my first success with the club during this debate. After debating, a guy told me that before, he was totally against vegetarian and vegan people, but now, he listened to our point of view and understood better. He did not become vegetarian, but at least he now has a better vision of them and he said he would reduce his meat consumption.

When you talk with people, never forget that veganism has multiple advantages! Unfortunately, some people do not care about animals (sad but true), you have to talk about another subject to touch him or her: environment, health… Finally, never seem aggressive, stay smiling and patient, otherwise they will think that you are just an extremist (this advice is important in France) but anyway, I think that keeping a positive attitude is a good thing in every country. 

• Participation in organized events
  We have been invited to participate in some events. The first one which comes to my mind is the “village for environment” organized by another university in Toulouse. We had a stand there and we chose to propose a quiz with free cakes. We were invited to participate in the Vegan Place organized by the association L214. Unfortunately, we could not respond favorably to this invitation. As a club (and not an association) we depend on the association of our college. This one has strict rules and one of them is that clubs cannot have a link to any groups which can be politically engaged. That explained why we could not participate in this event. Nevertheless, we attended the event as visitors. Once a year, we participate in the Day Club, a day where all clubs have a stand on the campus. It was actually our first event. We simply did the same as we did for the “village for environment.” These kind of events are a great opportunity to recruit! For the first time at my college, a three-day festival for sustainable development is organized and we were invited by the student association.

• Lecture We had the chance to welcome two lecturers in our school (one per year). I have found the first lecturer by contacting a scientist who did a lecture in another city in France. So, in April 2018, Andre Menache came to give a talk called: How can we replace animals in laboratory? It was really interesting and a hundred people attended the conference. He is a scientist who works with the association Antidote Europe. After this, we proposed vegan food handmade by members of the club. At that time, the club had existed for four months only and we were eight members. The second lecture was organized in March 2019. I found Isabelle Richaud by contacting “l’association végétarienne de France” (the France vegetarian Association). “Modifying our plate to save the planet” was the title of her presentation. It was an alarming and interesting one which related the link between farms and environmental issues.

• Discovery of Toulouse vegan restaurant and shop
  We are lucky to have a good vegan diversity in Toulouse. In fact, there are several vegan restaurants in the center and there is also a vegan shop. Sometimes, we go out to restaurants. All vegan-friendly restaurants can be found thanks to the application Happy Cow. The one I prefer is Veggie Corner! When the weather allows us, we also organize some picnics on the campus. We visited the Toulouse vegan place where we could have talked to many associates; it was really instructive for every one of us.

To finish, I will say that if you want to take action on your campus, first check if a club like this already exists or not. If not, remember that you can create it! And then, trust your imagination. I have listed a few ideas but you can do so much more. Be confident and do what seem right to you! For other ideas about organizing groups, see https://www.vrg.org/teen/#activism