Next in our series on the writers of “VEGAN VOICES – Essays by Inspiring Changemakers”, is Doreen Rothe.
Doreen was born in East Germany in 1971. She came to Berlin in 1991 to study Interpreting (English and Spanish). About a year later, she turned vegetarian and became active in an anti-vivisectionist organization. It took her eight more years to go vegan and some more to become a vegan activist. Subsequently she joined the volunteer network Berlin-Vegan, which aims mainly to help people find their way around vegan Berlin, and which established one of the world’s largest vegan street festivals, the Veganes Sommerfest Berlin. By then, Doreen had been working several years as a technical translator. When the opportunity came to work at the Albert Schweitzer Foundation, she accepted the position with great enthusiasm.
Extract from her essay in VEGAN VOICES:
“I have the great privilege to be able to work full-time for an animal welfare/animal rights organization, the Albert Schweitzer Foundation. This gives me the opportunity to spend as much time as possible on something I regard as so important for our future. Albert Schweitzer’s fundamental maxim was reverence for life. So we focus on the single greatest source of pain and death for animals: their exploitation and use as products and food sources…
“What I particularly like about the foundation is its pragmatic approach, always based on the latest scientific findings. While we very decidedly work to promote the vegan lifestyle as the most ethical solution, we also try to achieve as many real improvements as possible in the lives of the countless animals who are still suffering for human consumption…
“As humans, we are in the unique position to be able to reduce the amount of suffering and increase the amount of happiness in the world… Never before has it been more urgent for us to act together for a better world, and never before has it been easier. So let us get together and make the world a better place to live for humans and nonhumans alike”.
Review of Vegan Voices by Bruce Friedrich, Co-founder & Executive Director, The Good Food Institute:
“There are as many reasons to be vegan as there are vegans, as this lovely anthology makes clear. So many of my heroes in one place—what a treat. Read it and be inspired.”
Vegan Voices: Essays by Inspiring Changemakers
Available at Lantern Publishing & Media
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59056-650-3
eBook ISBN: 978-1-59056-651-0
