BTW, Turkiye’s Vegan Movement is Remarkable
Visiting grantees in their own country helps Thrive Philanthropy do its work most effectively. This is even more important in countries with multiple grantees.
Site visits ensure we have a better understanding of the country’s movement ecosystem and on-the-ground reality thereby enabling us to make the most informed and effective grant investments.
Thrive Grantee, Burak Özgüner Hayvan Hakları Merkezi (BurHak) builds the next generation of academic advocates, read their 2025 annual report here!
Thrive Grantee, Vegan Medical Student Committee, started the initiative as medical students, now as young doctors, they strategize next stages.
Thrive’s CEO, Jessika Ava, recently conducted a site visit to Turkiye, a country with five grantees plus numerous potential grantees including HAKIM, Turkish Medical Student Committee, Vegan Association of Turkey, V-Label, Vegan Ciftlik, Yaşamdan Yana Derneği, BurHak, and Vegan Istasyon.
This visit made us better informed of the socio and political hurdles affecting Turkish advocacy and local theories of change, enabling us to ascertain how Thrive can make the most impact.
We were thoroughly impressed by the active food systems and animal movement in the country. In fact - all the main components needed for an agricultural and social transition are present - the legal and academic advocates to push policy, institutional outreach to shift corporate practices, outreach to transition consumer demand, a medical professionals group taking the public health angle, and rapidly emerging food startup entrepreneurs, grocers, and restaurants working with local growers to increase plant-based food and nutrition access. And what is preventing a mass, country-wide change? Lack of funding and lack of viable advocacy-based career opportunities. We came to understand the impact of advocacy that is conducted with limited budgets, and it’s thoroughly impressive - even more impressive is the untapped potential if more financial resources were available.
This is where you play a role.
Thrive is honored to fund the Turkish movement, but we can only help the country reach its potential with your support.
Thrive Grantee, Vegan Association of Turkiye is a long-standing organization conducting festivals, institutional outreach and more. Alongside V-Label, that effectively pushes for increased vegan products.
Vegan Istasyon, a leading Istanbul vegan grocer and vegan food startup retailer who plays a key role in distributing vegan food company products across the country. Everything in the grocer is produced locally.
Would you like to help?
We need your help to support regions of the world like Turkiye, where food systems advocacy has significant potential - but needs funding to get there - make a contribution to Thrive’s Food System Fund or join our Thrive Community Grantmaker.
Factory farming is a global issue, Thrive is a a global solution. But in order to push for a world without factory farming, we need you.
Learn more about Turkiye’s animal movement.
Turkiye has a long history of care for animals. This photo, located in the Istanbul Cat Musuem, shows a 19th century “Mancaci”, a person whose profession is to feed street animals during the Ottoman Empire.
Istanbul has a love of animals and countless community street cats roam the alleys and store fronts.
A community street cat lounges in front of an antique shop.
We were pleasantly surprised to stumble upon an extensive animal rights literature display at a local bookstore. With dozens of animal justice and vegan books by local and international authors.
Street dogs are also loved, although sadly recently the government culled countless street dogs despite advocacy efforts to stop it.
Street animals are such an integral part of the community that even street art is dedicated to them.