Join Dr. Melanie Joy and Tobias Leenaert, world renown experts, to kickstart your journey to creating a compassionate world.
Session #1: How Vegans can Improve Relationships and Communication – Dr. Melanie Joy
Many vegans find that it’s difficult or impossible to feel connected with the non-vegans in their lives and to communicate about veganism in a way that doesn’t cause cause conflict. Often, too, vegans have trouble relating and communicating with other vegans when they disagree with each other’s ideas. In this presentation, psychologist Dr. Melanie Joy explains the principles and tools for creating healthy, connected relationships, and she gives tips on how to talk about even the most challenging issues productively.
About Dr. Melanie Joy: She is a Havard-educated psychologist, international speaker, organizational consultant, trainer and realtionship coach. She is the author of award-winning book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: An introduction to Carnism, as well as Strategic Action for Animals Beyond Beliefs: A Guide of Improving Relationships and Communication for Vegans Vegetarians and Meat Eaters. Dr. Melanie Joy is the founding president of the charitable organization, Beyond Carnism, a co-founder of ProVeg International, and the co-director of the Center for Effective Vegan Advocacy (CEVA).
Session #2: How to Create a Vegan World – Tobias Leenaert
Tobias talks about four key ingredients to create a vegan world. They are qualities or attitudes that the vegan movement can use more of: open-mindedness, to be able to consider different tactics and strategies and think out of the box. Empathy, to be able to get through to people more easily. Rationality, in order to avoid “vegalomania” and purism. And positivity, to keep doing what we are doing and get better results.
About Tobias Leenaert: He is the author of ‘How to Create a Vegan World‘ and a long time speaker, trainer and strategist. He is also the co-founder and former director of the Belgian organization EVA (Ethical Vegetarian Alternative), the first vegetarian/vegan organization to receive structural funding from a national government. Tobias Leenaert gives animal advocacy trainings worldwide together with Dr. Melanie Joy, for the Center of Effective Vegan Advocacy (CEVA). He is also a co-founder of ProVeg International.