With great honor and pleasure, we cordially invite you to join us in Kathmandu (Nepal) and Pokhara (Nepal), from September 15th to 20th, 2022 to participate in The Himalayan Vegan Festival and the 7th Annual World Vegan Organisation’s International Conference. Be a part of this history-making event in the heart of the Himalayas! The Himalayan Vegan Festival is a family-friendly, educational, 6-day event celebrating the health, environmental, and animal welfare benefits of following a plant-based lifestyle. It will be the largest vegan event ever in the Himalayas and the biggest plant-based festival in Nepal’s history! This landmark event in the Himalayas will feature internationally recognized speakers and vegan celebrities; informative exhibitors; entertaining local
musical and dance performances; a fantastic vegan food court and vegan food festival; vegan food and product bazaar; cooking demonstrations and classes by local and international vegan chefs; movie screenings; interactive workshops and classes; and a kids activities corner. It will also involve a 5k mini-marathon hosted by two of the world’s leading vegan athletes; vegan health, fitness, and fashion features; a hands-on youth education area including youth-oriented yoga and fitness activities; a gardening seminar; and animal education provided by local area organizations and non-profits; and much more…
This non-profit event will focus on raising awareness about veganism and fostering the growth of the vegan lifestyle and movement through a range of activities. The Himalayan Vegan Festival includes informative talks and lectures; in-depth workshops and demos with speakers coming from all over the region, Asia, and around the world to give talks, share ideas, and Q&A sessions. It seeks to inspire local activists, and grassroots vegan movements; provide networking opportunities; raise awareness of the benefits of a plant-based diet to omnivores; and much more. It also provides excellent opportunities for brands and companies to showcase their plant-based vegan products and services. The Himalayan Vegan Festival will be FREE and open to the general public and include everyone from local, regional, and international vegan and animal rights activists, and people
interested in a vegan lifestyle, to local families, students, and civil servants, community, religious, and political leaders. We would be thrilled if you could join us in making history and be a part of this vegan change happening in the Himalayas!
This history-making event will be held in the Himalayan capital of Kathmandu, Nepal, for 3 days from September 15-17, 2022, and in Pokhara, Nepal for 3 days from September 18-20, 2022. Pokhara is the country’s secondlargest district and a very popular domestic (as well as international) tourist area that is home to spectacular Himalayan views, Nepal’s 2nd largest lake (it is famous as the city of lakes), and colleges. The Gandaki Province government has personally invited the festival to come there & the National Tourism Board is going to organize a full vegan street food fare festival in the evening on the country’s Constitution Day on September 19th where even two members are involved in drafting the Constitution will join us. We'll have a 2 day-event vegan
celebration with workshops, talks, screenings, cultural programs, lots of fantastic vegan food, and a fantastic vegan food festival night market on Constitution Day, and on the third day after having a delicious vegan buffet breakfast as the sunrises over the Himalayas on a nearby mountaintop (which we’ll access by the country’s newest cable car built as a Japanese-Austrian-Nepal collaboration) with some of the best Himalayan views in the area, we’ll join members from the local community as they share with us their community and culture in Pokhara. We also cordially invite you to join us a few days before the Himalayan Vegan Festival for a 3-day pre-festival event in Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha. We will be hosting a pre-festival World Vegan Organisation (WVO) – Nepal event on Climate Change, Conservation, a Plant-Based Diet, and Buddhism in the 21st Century. This gathering of environmentalists, vegans, monks from all the different countries’ monasteries represented at Lumbini, community leaders, and students, will be an awareness event about climate change, conservation, and a plant-based diet, and their relevance to Buddhism in the 21st century. It will be held at the Nepal World Center for Peace & Unity Monastery (Mahayana Buddhism), and we’ll be having fantastic vegan temple food which is being hosted at the Thai Monastery (Theravada Buddhism). We’ll also be having a completely vegan ceremony at the Maya Devi Temple (location of the Buddha’s birth) where the traditionally fueled butter for the lamps will be replaced with vegetable oil, the food offerings to the monks will all be vegan, & even any drums accompanying the ceremony will also be vegan (no animal skin). This will be the first time the ceremony is performed completely
vegan. Please see Climate Change, Conservation, a Plant-Based Diet & Buddhism in the 21st Century itinerary for more details on this event.
THE HIMALAYAN VEGAN FESTIVAL will be a CARBON NEUTRAL EVENT: All the Himalayan Vegan Festival events will be 100% carbon neutral. All carbon emissions will be offset with community tree planting and other offset projects that volunteers are organizing with youth from Pokhara, Lumbini, and Kathmandu, and we’ll be using Yeti Airlines, Nepal’s first carbon-neutral airline, for all our roundtrip flights from Kathmandu to Pokhara, and Kathmandu to Lumbini. The Lumbini Development Trust has brand new electric buses they are providing us for our transfers during the 2-day event in Lumbini as well.
The team in Nepal has worked hard to make this landmark event as successful and affordable as possible for everyone, so the Himalayan Vegan Festival will be a FREE event, and open to all. However, we understand some people are interested in attending the full event from start to finish either in Kathmandu or Pokhara, or Lumbini (or all three of the events). We are pleased to offer “all-inclusive delegate passes” to accommodate this need so you will be able to get the most from the festival. These passes will be all-inclusive and will cover all your accommodations, meals, ground transfers, domestic flights, and even sightseeing while in Nepal. The passes will also provide reserved seating at lectures and reserved places in particular workshops and classes of your choice (which will be on a first come first served basis for the general public). The passes will also offer greater engagement opportunities with other vegan activists, experts, delegates, and speakers from around the world at special festival-sponsored vegan lunches, dinners, lounges, and talks. We also understand that many people may not have enough time to attend all the events in Nepal, so we have special delegate passes for all 3 events. Please find below a brief itinerary of the Himalayan Vegan Festival – Main Event in Kathmandu, followed by the brief itinerary for the Himalayan Vegan Festival – Pokhara Event. We have also included the details for the Patrons of the Festival Passes or both Kathmandu and Pokhara as well below for those who are interested in these passes. And finally, we have also included the itinerary for the Pre-Festival Event in Lumbini below the
Kathmandu and Pokhara itineraries for those who may be interested in attending this event as well. For more details on the different talks, workshops, screenings, and activities, please kindly visit the Himalayan Vegan Festival website at: www.HimalayanVeganFestival.org. For reference, here are the dates again for all three events at the Himalayan Vegan Festival…
PRE-FESTIVAL EVENT: LUMBINI, NEPAL – SEPTEMBER 12th, 13th, & 14th, 2022 (see pages
THE MAIN EVENT: KATHMANDU, NEPAL – SEPTEMBER 15th, 16th, & 17th, 2022
THE POKHARA EVENT: POKHARA, NEPAL – SEPTEMBER 18th, 19th, & 20th, 2022
Thank you very much for your support of The Himalayan Vegan Festival. We look very much forward to seeing you and celebrating veganism together in the Himalayas!
For more information and registration, please kindly contact Shova Bhujel, International Guest and Speaker Coordinator, by email at shova@vegvoyages.com
