Katrin Rohde, born in 1948 in Hamburg, completed her secondary education in England and opened her first bookstore at the age of just twenty-four. She successfully ran two bookshops in Germany and training a total of twenty apprentices before radically changing her life and relocating permanently to Burkina Faso.
There, she founded AMPO International e. V. , a nonprofit organization that has achieved great success in supporting street children, orphans, girls, and women. For over 30 years, her name has stood for courage, social justice, and intercultural commitment. In Burkina Faso, she is widely known as "Mama Tenga" - Mother Fatherland. Her work has earned her multiple awards, including the Federal Cross of Merit, First and Second Class, as well as national honors in Burkina Faso.
To mark the 30th anniversary of her organization, her autobiography is now being released with a new foreword.