About — Animal Alliance Asia

Our Team

Poppy Permatasari (she/they)

Indonesia Director
Born and raised in Indonesia, coming from small town in pemangkat. Poppy is animal advocate and a vegan grassroots activist as they are also took part in the Sentient Media Social Media Fellowship 2022 as a team leader for Radical Kindness and working in the one and only farmed animal sanctuary.
Their most passionate field is aboslutely empowering and collaboration every local communities, as Satu Hari Nabati stands for one Day One plant based & One Community a day
(Roxie) Haoting Chia (she/her)

Taiwan Director
Born and raised in Taiwan, Roxie graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Fashion Design and worked in the fashion industry for 3 years before seeing the change she wanted to be for animals.
In the past, while working for Taiwan SPCA and Kindness for Animals Taiwan, she was dedicated to researching and lobbying for legislative change.
Being extremely intruiged by the behavioral sicence of animals, she's been taking multiple dog behavior courses in different countries and the journey is still ongoing! She's also a proud caregiver for an aloof rescued dog named Mù-Ěr.
Dr. Stef dela Cruz (she/her)

Philippines Director
Stef is an animal advocate. Before becoming vegan, she worked with organisations fighting for environmental protection, women’s rights, and healthcare justice. She graduated with Latin honours from both Medicine and Nursing at the University of Santo Tomas, where she is a Dean Bacala Academic Excellence Award recipient. She is the only doctor to receive the 2013 Health Media Award from the Department of Health. Arguably her most important achievement is being the human guardian of three spoiled cats.
Surajan Shrestha (he/him)

Nepal Director
Witnessing the cruel practice of animal sacrifice in various festivals for long time, Surajan shifted himself towards living a compassionate life when he was around 10 years old. He co-founded Animal Rights Club (ARC) to advocate for animal welfare/rights issues in his community.
Through his work with ARC, he has been an outspoken advocate for animal rights, featured in numerous national and international news media including Kantipur, NBC News, Dailymail etc.
He has worked alongside elected officials, heads of national and international organisations, academics and specially within community to raise public awareness on cruelty-free food, wildlife and environment conservation and implement animal welfare policy changes.
Jayson Collins (he/him)

Japan Director
Jayson has been engaged in vegan and animal rights advocacy for over eight years. He has translated and produced more than 300 videos on veganism and animal ethics with Japanese subtitles, making the topic of animal rights accessible to Japanese audiences. Through Instagram's collaborative live feature, he has also facilitated conversations with over 150 individuals on a wide range of social justice issues.
Aim Ritkampee (she/her)

Program Assistant & Communications Strategist
Aim was born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand. She graduated with a Master’s degree in Social and Cultural Psychology.
She’s passionate about collective action for social change. She co-founded All Animals Thailand, a group of Thai animal advocates designed to foster local advocacy and awareness around veganism and animal justice issues.
Me Me Zin Oo (she/they)

Communications Lead
Me Me is a passionate intersectional humanitarian from Myanmar who avidly advocates and is involved in projects for various social movements, including but not limited to animal welfare and poverty. She believes strongly in the correlations between different social and humanitarian issues around the world creating direct and indirect impact between each other, and the importance of being an intersectional humanitarian.
She is also a fierce activist for the animals, realizing the critical need for the education and implementation of matters related to animal welfare as well as cruelty and exploitation in a variety of industries on a societal, corporate and legal level.
Ailya Khan (she/her)

Strategy Lead, Pakistan Director
In addition to working for AAA, Ailya is a grassroots vegan advocate working on peer to peer engagement to increase awareness of speciesism and veganism in Pakistan. Ailya is also the founder of Ghaas Phoos Plant Based Foods, Pakistan's first fully vegan owned and run startup.
She advocates for collective liberation and has been part of other social justice causes. Prior to persuing animal advocacy full-time, Ailya graduated as an Architect in 2015, has taught in several institutes in Pakistan, She was the COO at a media startup and has led and managed multiple projects.
Ailya lives with her 4 elderly cats, loves all animals and has been fostering, rehoming and feeding stray animals as an independent rescuer for over 10 years.'
Elly Nakajima (she/her)

Executive Director, Co-Founder
Born and raised in Japan, Elly is dedicated to building a more inclusive and effective animal justice movement across Asia. She is one of the first Japanese language educational content providers for vegan advocates in Japan. She read BSc Psychology and MA Filmmaking in the UK, and worked in media for 10 years prior to founding Animal Alliance Asia.
Kaho Nishibu (she/her)

Program and Research Coordinator
Born and raised in Japan and currently based in Canada, Kaho is dedicated to bringing in the anti-oppressive framework to the animal movement in Asia. Kaho has been involved in multiple social, environmental, and animal justice movements both in Japan and Ontario. She is also passionate about developing the culture of collectivity through building cross-movement and cross-cultural coalitions.
Trung Nguyen (he/him)

Tech Coordinator
I was born and raised in Saigon, Vietnam but currently live in Da Nang City. I turned vegan about 2 years ago after watching a documentary film about cruelty in the meat and dairy product industry. I come from a technical background and have worked for big enterprises in IT/Network/Manufacturing for the last 10 years. However, none of these works made me feel like I'm contributing to making the world a kinder and better place. That's why I decided to join AAA as a Tech Coordinator and hope to use technology to make our world a better place for all kinds of animals and human beings.

Advisory Board

Amruza Birdie (she/her)

Founder and former executive director of Encompass, a nonprofit with a mission to make the farmed animal protection movement more racially diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
Prior to Encompass, Amruza spent seven years at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine promoting alternatives to animal tests as a federal lobbyist. In addition to her more than two decades of experience in animal protection, Amruza has worked in other social justice movements, including those striving for racial justice, queer rights, and reproductive freedom.
Amruza received a degree from Hampshire College in critical social thought/race and feminist theory and her Master’s in Public Management from Johns Hopkins University. She is a Zoroastrian Parsi, a rare ethnic group of less than 120,000 people worldwide.
Gina Song Lopez (宋芝蘭 Song Chih Lan)

Taiwan Advisor
PhD Candidate - Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University
Gina is interested in the political and cultural aspects of multispecies entanglements in food systems and their role in sustainability issues. Her doctoral project focuses on the expansion of animal ethics and climate discourses in Taiwan and China through the case of vegan advocacy and the adoption of new plant-based lifestyles in the region.
Mineto Meguro (he/him)

Japan Advisor
Animal liberation activist, animalist and vegan.
Representative of the Animalism Party and an NPO Animal Liberator. Based on the philosophy of Animalism, Mineto works on transforming society from one that benefits the powerful, to one that honours the dignity of all.
Momin Zafar (he/him)

Pakistan Advisor
Momin Zafar has worked as a photographer, communication designer, and educator for around 20 years. He has been vegan since 2021 and cares deeply about effective, empathetic dialogue around this topic. He is currently enrolled in an MA Expressive Arts Therapy programme.
Shiela R Castillo

Philippines Advisor
Shiela R. Castillo is an independent consultant for social development and foresight with 20 years of experience in the Philippines, Cambodia, and globally (remote). Shiela started her environment work with the Sagip Pasig Movement in 2001, climate advocacy with The Climate Reality Project in 2011, and became a vegan and animal rights activist in 2015.
She is one of the co-founders of the Philippine Futures Thinking Society (PhilFutures) and
currently in her second two-year term as a Council Member of the TFSX (formerly The Futures School) Global Foresight Advisory Council (GFAC).
Shiela is currently engaged with United Edge, a justice-based social enterprise, as Foresight and Engagement Director.
Shristi Singh Bhandari (she/her)

Nepal Advisor
Shristi is an environmental and animal rights activist from Nepal committed to finding solutions that will help protect our natural environment for future generations. She believes that we need to take a holistic approach to our interactions with animals to ensure they are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve. She campaigns to protect the natural environment through People’s Alliance for Nature Nepal and Women in Nature network. Working in collaboration with others, she has created urban pocket forests to tackle air pollution and water shortages and uses theater and storytelling to pass on the conversation messages to the next generation.
Drh Sasa Vernandes (she/her)

Indonesia Advisor
Founder and Chief Veterinary Officer of Sintesia Animalia Indonesia, an Indonesian animal justice advocacy organisation.She is an animal justice advocate and veterinary scientist with 8 years’ experience in improving animal justice in Indonesia using a decolonised, One Health approach.Before being a founding member of Sintesia she worked for Animals Australia (AA) as a Indonesian Team leader. She has a strong history of building collaborative relationships that empower people to work toward a shared vision. She believes that veterinarians have a fundamental role in improving animal justice and that humans, animals, and the environment must co-exist in harmony for a kinder world.

Board of Directors

Varda Mehrotra (she/her)

Varda Mehrotra is an animal advocate and movement builder, exploring intersectional solutions. She is the founder of Samayu (India), which undertakes intersectional work and applies a systems approach for issues surrounding justice and animals. Under her decade-long leadership, FIAPO - India’s federation for animal organisations - was recognised as one of the most effective animal charities. She has spearheaded several large-scale undercover investigations, campaigns for farmed animals and was the architect of India’s largest plant-based advocacy network – Living Free, which has created many animal advocate leaders in the country.
Anam Nguyen (she/her)

Anam Nguyen has been deeply invested in animal rights, justice and welfare for most of her life. She mainly organized in the United States, where her activism often focused on the intersections between animal justice and other social justice movements. Anam is also involved in the Effective Altruism community and believes that supporting Animal Alliance Asia is the most effective use of her resources. Anam is excited to bring her professional experience from the finance and software industry to the Board of Animal Alliance Asia.
She currently lives in the United States with her wife and two cats.
Jessika Ava (she/her)

Jessika Ava is the CEO and founder of Thrive Philanthropy, a global grantmaker that amplifies plant-based food systems and accelerates alternatives to industrial animal agriculture worldwide. Her notable experience includes organization leadership, global grantmaking, statistical program evaluations, street animal welfare, and elephant conservation. She has been involved in Asia's animal and plant-based movements since 2010. She holds an MS in Biostatistics and an MPA in Nonprofit Management and Program Evaluation and sits as Board President of A Just World, Board Chair of Out to Pasture Animal Sanctuary, and Board Member of Animals Unbound and Animal Alliance Asia.