4 vegan activists that make a difference in Sinergia Animal’s community

Over the last three years, Sinergia Animal's vegan challenges have had the participation of over 116,000 people trying a vegan diet for 21 or 22 days. They received daily emails with tips, recipes, and nutritional support. But above all, they were kindly guided by the challenges' mentors – vegan activists from our community around the world who made the participants’ transitions much easier and warmer.

These attentive, empathetic, and kind people are now vegan activists. Specifically, they are our vegan challenges’ mentors who guide and support others to go and stay vegan and without whom we could not have gotten this far.

Our vegan activists take some time out of their days to connect with current challenge participants. They lead our social media groups and engage in conversations with them – recommending recipes, sharing valuable tips, and answering everyone’s questions. But most importantly, they are the ones that inspire participants with their own vegan journeys.

Take Ink, who is 18-years-old, for example: she joined the Thai Challenge 22 in March of 2020 and she describes it as “an amazing experience”. Ink was able to meet new people who share the same goal as her and was inspired by the mentors who were always willing to help, encouraging everyone along their paths to transition towards veganism.

Then, earlier this year, Ink started volunteering as a mentor herself for Thai Challenge 22. “I’m so happy that I could help animals by supporting people who want to become vegan,” she says.

Sofía is an Argentinian living in Chile and a mentor for Desafío 21 Días Veg. She’s 46-years-old, has been vegetarian for 31 years, and vegan for 8. Every week, Sofía takes time to answer challenge participants’ questions and she even shares some of her best recipes with them!

“I’m vegan because I believe animals are not objects at our service. I know they are beings with their own rights. I’ve always known this, but at some point I decided to confront this reality and act accordingly. I believe we all know this: we’re just too lazy to change our habits because we can ignore it, because we are not the ones suffering, because we don’t want to face the fact that we are a species that abuses others,” she told us.

Candra is a pastry chef from Surakarta, Indonesia. He signed up for the 21 Hari Veg challenge in early 2020 after a year of being a vegetarian. "The challenge turned out to be fun. Everyday we get new vegan recipes to try, various information and knowledge about vegan nutrition, and the advantages of veganism. I’ve been vegan ever since I started the challenge. I also decided to leave my job at a hotel and start my own vegan pastry business," said Candra.

A few months later, he joined our team of activists. "Besides making new friends, I'm happy to be able to share my recipes and support others in their journey. I hope my activism can help to spread awareness that a vegan lifestyle is the best for the animals, environment, and our health."

Ing, a 24-year old living in Bangkok and mentor for the Thai Challenge 22, had a similar insight. He has watched many documentaries about veganism and says it was just like taking the "red capsule pill" in The Matrix movie.

He went vegan to fight against the cruelty that happens inside the animal products industry. He says giving up animal products did not feel like sacrificing anything, but much on the contrary! “I found that being vegan is very fun when you are discovering new things to eat. I never feel like I am going against myself for not eating meat—every meal is pleasure. Vegan food is delicious, it is good to our health, good to the Earth, and good to the animals. So, WHY NOT?”

Now, Ing is an active volunteer and mentor that helps others enjoy a vegan lifestyle as much as he does! For him, this involves one main activity: speaking with kindness. “I always talk to people nicely when they ask why I am vegan. I talk about how being vegan benefits our health and our earth, and most importantly, how delicious it is. I found that lots of people tend to be interested in veganism when I speak kindly to them,” he shared with us.

We are so proud to have such kind and compassionate activists in our community! You too can become a mentor and help thousands of people going vegan and, thus, impact the lives of countless animals where they need us the most!