As part of the Meatless Monday island wide outreach program, the Meatless Monday Sri Lanka campaign took its team members to Hambantota, to spread the message of sustainable and meatless lifestyles.
A Youth Camp was organised in Hambantota, from 21st to 23rd September 2018, by the Federation of Youth Clubs Hambantota and the National Youth Services Council. More than 100 school children from around the Hambantota area attended the Youth Camp. Ms. Buddhika Ranadheera from the Meatless Monday Sri Lanka team took part in the Youth camp and conducted a session on the importance of adopting sustainable and meatless lifestyles.
“Animal farming has a significant impact on climate change and has been recognised as one of the main contributors towards GHG emissions. Initiatives like Meatless Monday have the capacity to create change at the local as well as the global level, and help bring the climate change issues to the public discourse,” said Ms. Ranadheera.
“Animal farming also consumes an undue amount of natural resources that contributes to deforestation and harm the air and water quality. The impact of these activities are a part of the vicious cycle that affects the environment and contribute towards the adverse impacts of climate change. Turning away from animal farming, and moving away from meat consumption will help take action to address impacts of climate change,” she explained.
The audience was educated on the importance of adopting eco-friendly consumerism as it is crucial to ensure that over utilization and over exploitation of scarce resources does not take place in order to combat climate change. Knowledge and promotional material regarding the Meatless Monday campaign was also distributed among the youth participants with requests to carry forward the Meatless Monday message to the communities.