A Kynd Life

Johanna Lostao is a university student studying intercultural communications and media studies in Germany. Born in Argentina, her family immigrated to Germany at age seven. Johanna speaks six languages and lived in Italy last year to immerse herself in the language and culture as part of her studies.

Johanna went vegetarian at twelve years old after seeing a tv commercial about chicken and making the connection with what was on her plate. Just before she turned eighteen, Johanna went vegan and has not looked back.

Johanna became an animal rights activist after moving to Halle and developing friendships with like minded vegans. Her friends showed Johanna that she could do more than eat vegan foods, she could also speak for animals.  Johanna participated in meet ups with groups of people interested in vegan and facilitated discussions about veganism. She also became involved in Anonymous for the Voiceless last year while in Sicily.

Last year during lockdown, Johanna rekindled her passion for art and combined it with her love of veganism.  Johanna began painting animals, created an Instagram page and started selling her artwork, while donating 25% of each sale to animal sanctuaries in Germany.  Johanna's artwork highlights the beauty of having animals in our lives.

In this episode, Johanna shares the importance of vegan relationships, learning from others and vegan art supplies.

https://www.instagram.com/veganartshare/
https://www.instagram.com/joannibanani/
https://www.instagram.com/le_4zampe_/
https://www.facebook.com/veganartshare-109347138050018/?ref=page_internal
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/VeganArtShare?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=1071690657

Aline Dürr was pregnant with her first child, when she started to move away from eating meat. After Aline's daughter was born, she came across a short video about the dairy industry and she connected with it so deeply. Aline received an invitation to the premiere screening of Dominion and she felt the need to attend. This bought about big change, as Aline came home and told her partner she was going vegan and wanted to raise their daughter vegan.

Aline is an interior designer and after going vegan, she wanted to combine her two passions, so she pursued a career in vegan interior design. Aline is the Founder and Director of Vegan Interior Design, a social enterprise providing design services, as well as an educational platform for people and companies to create healthy, sustainable and cruelty free services.

Aline published her first book "Vegan Interior Design" last year, which won the PETA Vegan Homeware Awards 2021. She is also organising the first ever Vegan Interior Design Week, a virtual event being held in November.

Outside of work and family life, Aline volunteers for a number of animal rescue organisations, including NSW Hen Rescue and finds fostering ex battery hens extremely rewarding.

In this episode, Aline shares her experiences as a foster carer, raising a vegan family and provides advice on how to make informed decisions when designing your living space and purchasing products for your home. 

https://www.instagram.com/vegan.interior.design/
https://www.facebook.com/veganinteriordesign/
https://www.veganinteriordesign.com
https://www.veganinteriordesignweek.com

Hudson Tarlow was raised vegetarian and during his freshman year, he was scrolling through YouTube and came across content from a vegan activist. Hudson binged watched hours of animal rights content, learning the truth about the animal agriculture industry and realised he had been living a lie as a vegetarian.

Hudson went vegan in June 2017, at age 15 and he knew at that point, he wanted to be an activist. Less than six months later, he convinced his parents to drive him to a Cube of Truth event in LA and has never looked back. Hudson valued feeling part of a community when he became involved in activism and recognises it helped him grow confidence in becoming a strong voice for animals.

Hudson tried many forms of activism when he first started, however he found outreach best suited him and was the most effective. Hudson wanted to use online platforms to speak for animals, so he immersed himself in learning how to create and edit content for social media and YouTube. His work was soon recognised by Anonymous for the Voiceless and he was asked to create content and manage their social media.

In this episode, Hudson shares highlights and lessons learnt throughout his activism journey, his newly found passion for producing music and finding alignment with the vegan straight edge lifestyle.

https://www.instagram.com/hudsontarlow/
https://www.facebook.com/HudsonTarlowVegan/
https://www.youtube.com/c/HudsonTarlowOfficial/
https://twitter.com/hudsontarlow/
https://www.tiktok.com/@hudsontarlow?

Bre Wigley is a professional vegan bodybuilder and new mumma. She has always had a passion for fitness and decided in 2015 that she wanted to compete vegan. She had been vegetarian before that, but after watching a few documentaries, Bre recognised that she knew better, so she had to do better.

Bre was raised in Tennessee (USA), so she went entirely against the grain when she stopped consuming animal products. Despite people and other athletes saying it would be impossible for her to gain muscle on a vegan diet, Bre became a professional bodybuilder within 3 months.  Bre now uses her fitness journey to inspire other athletes to adopt a vegan lifestyle.

Bre loves to cook and is passionate about recipe development and meal planning. Her friends and family gained interest in the vegan lifestyle after enjoying Bre's delicious home cooked meals.

Bre recently gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl Camille and is excited to empower other mums to raise vegan children and families.

https://www.officialbrewigley.com/
https://www.instagram.com/vegan.bre/
https://www.instagram.com/bre.faith.fit/

Katrina grew up in a compassionate household, with her sister and father going vegetarian in the early 1970s because they could not cause animals to suffer. She followed in their footsteps, becoming vegetarian at age 17, and soon started her animal rights activism journey, volunteering with Animal Liberation Victoria during her university studies.

Katrina had been holding onto the label of vegetarianism until she stopped making excuses for herself seven years ago and finally went vegan. She has over 30 years of animal activism experience with a number of organisations and campaigns including direct rescue, the Animal Justice Party, Humane Research Australia, the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses, Vegan Rising, Lamb Care Australia, Victorian Lamb Rescue, and Trivia for the Animals.

Katrina has 20 years teaching experience and spent 17 of those years living and working in Japan teaching interpreting skills and English. While residing in Japan she was involved in the formation of Animal Walk Tokyo and Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support (JEARS), following the Great Tōhoku Earthquake in 2011.

In this episode, Katrina shares her morning gratitude practice, the changes she has witnessed in the animal activism space over the last 30 years, challenges vegans face and the burden we carry in a non vegan world. 

https://www.facebook.com/KatrinaKSJ/
https://www.instagram.com/chuchotage0707/
https://twitter.com/BMJ0707
The Way We Think About Charity is Dead Wrong - https://youtu.be/bfAzi6D5FpM

Ashkr was raised vegetarian until age seven, when he began eating seafood. He had quite a nomadic upbringing, travelling around Australia while being home schooled, until his family decided to call Melbourne home at age 10.

Ashkr always loved cooking and undertook a chef apprenticeship during year 11 and 12 VCAL. During this time, he organised a food stall at a local school and raised money for Sea Shepherd. He became so passionate about Sea Shepherd's work, that he joined their Onshore Crew and assisted every weekend during year 12.

After completing high school, Ashkr applied to become a Deck Hand and very quickly learnt about Sea Shepherd's operation. Ashkr was invited to go on his first campaign "Operation Ice Fish" aimed at disrupting illegal fishing operations in the Antarctic. Ashkr was part of a team who removed 72km of gill nets over three weeks and was later involved in the rescue of over 40 crew members from an illegal fishing vessel Thunder.

Ashkr has been involved in more than five Sea Shepherd campaigns, starting as an Onshore Crew member, moving to a Deck Hand, Cook, Quartermaster, Third Officer and Second Officer. He later went on to complete commercial qualifications, which allows him to gain employment in the maritime industry.

In this episode, Ashkr shares his passion for marine conservation, his experiences on Sea Shepherd expeditions, his personal development journey and developing support networks for young men.

Ashkr's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ashkraudet/
Ashkr's Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ashkr.audet
Sea Shepherd https://www.seashepherdglobal.org/
Sam Simon Retrieves Illegal Gill Net Abandoned by Poachers https://youtu.be/_ZWp1exeKdo
Thunder: A Poaching Vessel Goes Down https://youtu.be/M3dRSE4j8zQ
Ocean Warriors - Chasing The Thunder Trailer https://www.vulcanproductions.com/our-work/ocean-warriors
Ocean Warrior - Chasing The Thunder Download https://www.waterbear.com/
Operation Nemesis https://youtu.be/3MQdqoQcMpc

Dim Kailaris was raised in a Greek family, with strong ties to culture and traditions including eating meat, dairy and eggs in every meal. He could never understand people being vegan, until seven years ago when he watched Earthlings. Dim saw what happens inside slaughterhouses and went vegetarian. Two months later, he learnt about the egg and dairy industry and went vegan from an ethical standpoint.

Being vegan was not enough, Dim needed to speak up about what was happening to animals, so he became active. Initially, Dim started posting on his social media and attended organised events such as protests, vigils and street outreach.

Dim recognised the importance of slaughterhouse footage in his own vegan journey and got involved in investigation work inside slaughterhouses and factory farms.  He knew how powerful the footage was, so entered facilities in Australia, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Being a teacher, Dim tried educating students about the realities of where their food comes from, however he quickly received backlash from schools and parents. Dim recently moved into full time animal rights work, which allowed him to focus on creating dontwatch.org

dontwatch.org includes a 6 minute video showing the realities of the animal agriculture industry. During the first 48 hours of it's launch, dontwatch.org had over 100,000 views and now averages 2000 views per day. The website contains recipes, links to Challenge 22, activism materials and the ability for people to contact the organisation for support.

In this episode, Dim also shares his experiences in conducting investigation work, disruptive action and activists working together to achieve total animal liberation.

https://dontwatch.org/
https://www.instagram.com/dim.stagram/
https://www.instagram.com/dontwatchofficial/
https://www.facebook.com/kailaris

Kim is a working mother of three, who studied law and moved into the public service to contribute to her local community. She was born in Vietnam and at age four, Kim and her family set sail on a small fishing boat to Hong Kong in search of a better life. At age 11, Kim and her family were accepted into Australia as refugees and Kim quickly learnt English as a second language.

Kim was raised eating a traditional Asian diet, with meat in every meal, because it was seen as a luxury. It wasn't until her father in law was diagnosed with prostate cancer, that she began researching the causes and found links between animal products and cancer. Kim was shocked at what she found and continued her research by watching What the Health and Forks Over Knives.

In 2018, Kim watched Earthlings and went vegan overnight, throwing the entire contents of her fridge because she no longer saw animals as food. She then converted her family by educating her children, ages 5, 7 and 10  and they became healthier in the process.

Kim and her children attend Cube of Truth demonstrations and marches, as Kim believes it is a great opportunity to get them involved and do something about a cause they are passionate about. Kim's children are also strong advocates for animal rights, sharing the vegan message in school projects and debates as much as possible.

In this episode, Kim recollects her childhood experiences, moving to a more meaningful career and overcoming the opinions of family and friends.

https://www.facebook.com/kimberly.phu
https://www.instagram.com/keekstery/

Matt Stellino watched in horror, as he saw a 4 Corners exposé on cattle in the live export industry. He looked online for footage that disproved what he had seen, only to find all of it was as horrible as what he had seen the night before and as a result Matt went vegetarian.

In 2015, Matt and his partner went to Vegan Day out to learn more about the vegan lifestyle. After reading all of the information, it became obvious to Matt that he had still been contributing to the suffering of chickens and cows and committed to going vegan.

Matt attended his first activism event in 2016, a University Cupcake Challenge, and has never looked back. In 2017, Matt got involved in starting the first Cube of Truth in Sydney and helped build the Sydney chapter to hold five Cubes per week over 4 locations.

Matt started Animal Rights Activism Sydney in 2019, which is a collaborative approach to activism, bringing together activists and animal rights organisations under one umbrella. Matt and the team organise Cube demonstrations, vigils, disruptions, fundraising events and working bees at sanctuaries.

Matt also became involved in the Animal Justice Party when he recognised the importance of regulatory change to bring about mass population change. He ran as a candidate in the 2019 state and federal elections and is currently standing as a candidate for his local Council.

In this episode, Matt shares advice on his outreach approach, working collaboratively and holding events to generate new volunteer interest and raise funds.

https://www.instagram.com/the33degreevegan/
https://www.facebook.com/matthew.runswithscissors
https://youtube.com/c/The33DegreeVegan
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n9V7gEQYY_K-IndRv4-TOIa-S27_R0DD/view?usp=sharing
https://m.facebook.com/1408289349210070