Print
Advertisement
A fully-vegan kindergarten will open in Germany this Summer – the first school of its kind in the country.
The Mokita Kindergarten, which will take in children aged three and upwards, will be run by a parent-founded association called ‘Veggie-Kids’.
It has been granted the go-ahead by Frankfurt city authorities, despite fierce opposition from some local politicians, including Stefan von Wangenheim of the Free Democrats, who said a specialist told him that ‘one could see this as a form of physical abuse’.
He added: “If parents were to send their kids to a Kindergarten which only provided fast food that would be just as dangerous for them as a vegan diet.”
‘Skeptical’
A spokesperson for the German Nutritional Society [DGE] told The Local that the organization is ‘skeptical’ about the plans.
She added: “While we don’t fundamentally recommend parents not to raise young children vegan, it needs to be done with a high level of knowledge and the additional use of supplements.
Local authorities have said they will monitor the 40 students closely to ensure they are receiving all necessary nutrients.
‘Empowering children’
But the school has big plans, aiming to ‘provide a sustainable, full-fledged, vegetarian nutritional concept that empowers children to eat healthily and responsibly with regard to animals, fellow human beings, and the environment’.
It wants to teach children ‘to take account of conflicting goals when considering strategies for action [and] reflect their own mission statements and those of others’.
