NICOLA KAGORO Bio
Nicola Kagoro was born in Harare, the current capital of Zimbabwe. At a tender age of 3 years, his family moved to New York where he grew up. He is now an Inspired Vegan Chef who runs a lifestyle vegan brand based in two countries Zimbabwe and South Africa. Nicola is passionate about food, cooking and what nature has to offer to humanity. Apart from being a chef, Kagoro is also focused on community development projects in rural Zimbabwe. He is particularly engaged in community development projects such as constructing gardens in schools that train cooks and agricultural clubs in the school and teach children how to grow vegetable most sustainably and what to do with them.
He is more inclined towards creating awareness on sustainable development goals, building capacity on the various ways through which Africans and most importantly, the Zimbabwe community can sustainably produce and consume agricultural produce. His ultimate goal to ensure that Africans and African countries are at the forefront in ensuring natural resource consumption is sustainable.
At the same time, he believes that sustainable world development is heavily embedded in ensuring gender equality. For a long time, women and girls have been an oppressed gender not only in Africa but also in other regions such a middle east and East Asia. If the world stands a chance to realize SDGs, then it is essential that everyone is well aligned and motivated to achieve them. The female gender is equally as important as the male gender. Gender equality includes ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls, eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls, eliminating harmful practices such FGM, ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive right and adopting sound policies to empower the female gender. Women empowerment, in this case, includes political inclusion, economic empowerment and provision of equal chances to job opportunities.
Equally, it is also imperative that women stand up for their right and learn to embrace and motivate each other. For instance, Tracyce McQuirter an African American Vegan Celebrity Chef is not only inspiration to many young African women but also a role model for other chefs across the world. She has fought a long time notion that Veganism is not African. Being a woman of colour, she helps change people’s mindsets to understanding that Africans also practice plant-based eating habits. She has also made it clear that black lives matter. They are a great source of inspiration.
As a vegan chef, Nicola loves veg burger. It is full of flavour and nutrients and sauce that are good for the world. He also feels that it best suit his personality. He also acknowledges that change takes time, and change is always fought. Women empowerment will not happen overnight; hence every involved part work and patiently must wait to see the change. The Digital Bootcamp event was also a great chance to learn new things and acquire more information and prime opportunity to interact and network with the UN family.