By Akua Oppong

My time at The Vegetarian Resource Group has been a fulfilling and exceptional experience. I have had the opportunity to explore my interests, learn about community outreach, and connect with impactful people.

A few weeks before my internship officially started, VRG was generous enough to provide me the opportunity to attend the Animal and Vegan Advocacy Summit with them. It was a truly enriching experience as I had the opportunity to connect with vegan activists, professionals, and companies.

One of the biggest projects I worked on during my internship was an article, meal plan, and recipes describing Ghanaian food and culture. This project was important to me because I have always wanted to do things to help promote veganism and healthy eating among the Ghanaian and African communities in the United States. I feel that my work on the project will help Ghanaians find ways to eat their cultural food in a healthy, fulfilling way, as well as anyone else who may want to try it. I collaborated with Reed Mangels, PhD, RD, a dietitian who works with VRG. Working with Reed was amazing as she provided specific, detailed feedback. This project has inspired me to continue sharing vegan resources and recipes with my community.

VRG has also allowed me to gain experience in many aspects such as networking, interviewing, writing articles, and reviewing events and products. The AVA summit was a great vessel for networking and I met many amazing people from around the world. I had the pleasure of interviewing Nancy, an exceptional student who has advocated for vegan foods at her high school, and met a young man from Ghana who is vegan and created a startup company that promotes animal advocacy in Ghana. During the internship I virtually observed a class by Kara Hall, a nutritionist who teaches vegan cooking and nutrition classes at Christopher Place, a residential employment academy for formerly homeless men in Baltimore.

I also conducted an interview with Dr. Peterson, a vegan dietitian and professor at Morgan State University, who I wrote about for a “Vegan Action” entry for Vegan Journal. Nadely, another VRG intern, and I, also had the chance to interview and record each other, describing our internships. I also had the chance to review a vegan pizza product for a Veggie Bit and a vegetarian Indian restaurant for VRG’s email newsletter.

For an exploratory assignment I got the chance to examine starches that are eaten in cultures around the world, and by reading VRG articles I learned about worldwide veganism, how to eat vegan on a budget, traditional, cultural, and religious vegan and vegetarian practices, what “plant-based” really means, and more. It was nice to see the many different vegan recipes that are made in African countries including Morocco, Ethiopia, and South Africa.

The main community health skill that I was able to apply during my internship were forms of qualitative studies. Qualitative studies are usually conducted by interacting with people, and I was able to do so through interviews. I then used the information or “data” I collected from the interviews or my experiences to write articles for the VRG blog.

Some ways in which this internship has shaped my future includes fueling my desire to work with people in communities, and possibly even a nonprofit organization like The VRG. I have been able to see how nonprofits work and how I can find a career in it. I look forward to seeking similar opportunities in the future.

Overall, the people at The VRG are a great, informative, genuine group of people who are passionate about what they do and want to share their passion and knowledge of veganism and vegan resources with the world. It has been a great honor to work with them this summer for my internship.

For more information about VRG internships, see https://www.vrg.org/student/index.php

To support VRG internships, donate at vrg.org/donate or join at https://www.vrg.org/member/2013sv.php