How I Made My Community Vegan Friendly (And How You Can Too!)
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When I moved with my family from NYC to the sunny Caribbean Island of Aruba in 2016, I had planned on being a stay at home mom to my then 8-month old daughter and relaxing on the beach in my down time. I had left the hustle and bustle of the city and my full time job in favor of the slower island lifestyle. For the first few months, we enjoyed the tourist-style life, dining out and exploring the island. But one crucial aspect of our quality of life was missing. Aruba was not vegan friendly, and we started to feel stress and anxiety around supermarket shopping and eating at restaurants. As a trained social worker, community organizer, and public health professional, my natural response was to devise a plan to make Aruba a vegan friendly place to live and to visit. With my efforts and the support of the community, within one year the island become vegan friendly, and within two years I am now hosting vegan vacation retreats on Aruba and virtually training consultants around the world to use my method to transform their communities.
I’m excited to share with you my strategies for community change. These are based on the steps I took to turn Aruba into a vegan friendly island in just under one year!
CREATE A MISSION: What’s your goal and how will you know when you’ve achieved it? Your mission should be about the type of community you want to create. My first step was getting clear on my mission, which was to make the vegan lifestyle acceptable and accessible on Aruba. I achieved this mission within one year, which is why I started to branch out to help others around the world do the same. In Aruba, I still encourage businesses who haven’t yet caught on to go vegan friendly and I continue to build a vegan advocacy team here that can provide education in the local language.
FIND YOUR ALLIES: How will you communicate with vegans in your community and others interested in your mission? I started by creating a point of contact and communication for the vegan community to share information and encourage progress. It started simply as an instagram account, and a year later, a website veganaruba.com. These online places act as a point of contact for the vegan community to share information. When someone would tag me with a vegan friendly product they spotted, I would repost. I found that people were more comfortable following someone they felt they could learn from rather than joining a vegans-only facebook group, for example. In communities where veganism isn’t yet “a thing”, people may not feel comfortable “outing” themselves publicly and would prefer to follow you and message you directly. I made tons of friends this way and we’ve since had several community meetups and events. This also attracted press which helped me spread the word even more.
ADOPT A FUTURE-THINKING MESSAGE: Complaining about what’s missing will only get you so far. The focus of your messaging should be on what you are trying to create, not on what your community is lacking. From Day 1, I set out to prove that it was possible to be vegan on Aruba. Instead of spending my time complaining about the lack of vegan options, I would write posts about the great efforts that chefs would make to create vegan dishes for me. I would put out messages like “The demand for vegan options in Aruba is high” and “Aruba is on its way to being the most vegan friendly island in the Caribbean”...before it happened...because I knew it was possible, and the only way to make it happen was to act like it already had. Live in your future message, in the world you are trying to create, and watch it manifest before your eyes.
LOOK FOR OPPORTUNITIES TO HELP: For me, the opportunities came quickly and abundantly. Once businesses and individuals realized that it was possible to be vegan on Aruba, everyone wanted to know about the benefits of this lifestyle for their family and for their business. Within months, I was consulting for the very restaurants that initially couldn’t serve me. I was speaking about veganism at the University, the Central Bank, and for departments in the government. I was giving private cooking lessons and then large public cooking classes. I was on the radio and television promoting my cause. This all happened because people asked me for help, and I said YES. I didn’t spend time doubting myself, questioning my ability to help, or wallowing in self-limiting beliefs. I focused on my mission and my future-thinking message, gathered the support of my allies, and went out there to change my community -- and now, the world.
I’d love to connect with you to hear about the steps you’re taking to transform your community. If you’d like to join my consultant training program and receive step by step support and mentorship from me through this process, click here to learn more and contact me to request an application.