Dina Aherne is a U.K born Hindu, and a lawyer by background has decided to leave her corporate career to pursue her passion for animal rights education and advocacy, whilst continuing her law work through teaching and training on a consultancy basis.
Dina is involved in a number of campaigns including holding vigils outside slaughterhouses, bearing witness to cows going to slaughter, as well as regularly giving talks around the country about the realities of the meat and dairy industry. Her more recent campaign has involved raising awareness about the realities of the dairy industry amongst the Hindu section of society. Hindus, in general, revere the cow seeing the animal as sacred, often referring to the dairy cow as mother or more dearly, Gaumata.
Unfortunately, many vegetarians do not know what the reality is for their beloved Gaumata, including but not limited to how she is made to bear calf over and over again through artificial methods and how her calf, once born, is typically separated from the mother within a few days.
Dina herself was a vegetarian for much of her life and once she realised that these realities existed, she decided to not only become vegan and thus not contribute to such harm to cows but also to use her legal skills and teaching abilities to raise awareness about these harsh realities.
Dina believes that whether one is Hindu or not, people generally wish to live a life where they do not want to knowingly contribute to harm to other beings. The concept of ahimsa very much entails no harm.
Dina began her 'Honour the Cow, give up Milk' campaign in Leicester on Belgrave Road (or better known as the Golden Mile) in April this year. In June this was followed by Part 2 of the campaign in Ealing Road, Wembley which was deemed a success with one of the highlights being a young, 6 year old vegan activist called Jian who spoke to members of the Hindu community about the cruel dairy industry.
