Jah Ying Chung

Jah Ying Chung

“If you want to be effective at changing people’s minds and behaviours, it’s very important to first understand how they think, and how they behave, and why.”

Jah Ying Chung, a food researcher in China, stands in a packaged food aisle of a store that is also a wet market. Jah Ying is the co-founder of The Good Growth Co., which researches Chinese consumers' attitudes toward food and works in the plant-based/alternative protein and animal welfare spaces. Hong Kong, China, 2022. #unboundproject / We Animals

After interning with the UN in Beijing, then graduating from university in 2010, Jah Ying Chung began working on environmental issues. Her interest in international development fed into a concern about how climate change could impact people in underdeveloped nations in Asia.

“I remember talking about Bangladesh, how if the sea level rises and there is flooding, [there is a] lack of infrastructure to ensure the wellbeing of everyone, especially those living near the coast,” she says. “These kinds of issues were very fascinating to me ever since high school.”

Jah Ying Chung, a food researcher in China, stands at the entrance to a wet market. Jah Ying is the co-founder of The Good Growth Co., which researches Chinese consumers' attitudes toward food and works in the plant-based/alternative protein and animal welfare spaces. Hong Kong, China, 2022. #unboundproject / We Animals

Jah Ying Chung, a food systems researcher and entrepreneur in China, stands at the entrance to a wet market. Jah Ying is the co-founder of The Good Growth Co., which researches Chinese consumers’ attitudes toward food and works in the plant-based/alternative protein and animal welfare spaces. Hong Kong, China, 2022. #unboundproject / We Animals

Though at that time Chung had not yet made the connection between animal agriculture and climate change, the further she worked on environmental issues, the more she learned about how much her own meat consumption was contributing to the very problem she was battling. “That’s when I started to stop eating meat,” she recalls, and it’s when she started shifting the focus of her mission.

Chung’s first project was a platform to help student groups in Asia fundraise and connect with corporate sponsors. “The mission originally was to empower students so they could do more on campus, and hopefully that leads to more meaningful things when they graduate.” But eventually, Chung wanted to do more. She sold the company after five years and began searching for her next venture.

“I was very adamant,” she recalls, “that whatever I do next it needs to not only feel like it’s a good thing [..] but it had to be concretely impactful with evidence to back it up.”

Eventually that search led her to animal welfare and the plant-based/alt-protein space in Asia, and to designing and doing market research that helps companies better understand Asian consumers.

Today, Chung is the co-founder of The Good Growth Co., a market research and strategy consultancy “for sustainable and ethical food systems in Asia,” according to the organization’s website. Good Growth works with “food companies, advocacy groups and social impact funders to understand consumers, scope new markets and prototype products & programmes.”

“The whole idea was to help good things grow,” she says of building Good Growth Co. in 2019.

Now, plant-based and alt-protein companies, as well as animal advocacy organizations looking to expand to Asia, for example, can and do look to Chung’s important work to learn how to most effectively target people in that region, and to understand the opportunities and challenges of working in these countries.

“If you want to be effective at changing people’s minds and behaviours, it’s very important to first understand how they think, and how they behave, and why.” For example, she explains, “one interesting thing we can look at is what do advocates believe about consumers, and what do consumers actually think?”

Chung recently partnered with Faunalytics, for a ground-breaking two-phase study that asked animal advocates what they thought were effective strategies and then asked the same of consumers. According to Faunalytics: “After seeking input from members of the farmed animal protection community in China, we conducted focus groups regarding the attitudes of Chinese consumers towards meat consumption, the concept of farmed animal welfare, different types of messaging and strategies for encouraging movement growth.” What the study found was, in part, that Chinese consumers are most concerned with farmed animal welfare due to reasons around food quality and food safety. “Products labeled as higher-welfare are more trusted, while lower-quality products are associated with a range of concerns, including animals being raised in unsanitary conditions, and the use of hormones, antibiotics, and GM products on farms,” according to the study’s key findings.

Jah Ying Chung, a food researcher in China, smiles as she selects vegetables from the display inside a store that sells produce. Jah Ying is the co-founder of The Good Growth Co., which researches Chinese consumers' attitudes toward food and works in the plant-based/alternative protein and animal welfare spaces. Hong Kong, China, 2022. #unboundproject / We Animals

Jah Ying Chung, a food systems researcher and entrepreneur in China, smiles as she selects vegetables from the display inside a store that sells produce. Jah Ying is the co-founder of The Good Growth Co., which researches Chinese consumers’ attitudes toward food and works in the plant-based/alternative protein and animal welfare spaces. Hong Kong, China, 2022. #unboundproject / We Animals

Further, the study also found that “animal welfare was not generally seen as a foreign concept. Contrary to what some China-based advocates suspected in our Phase 1 report, we found that most participants exposed to the concept and details of provisions for animal welfare did not generally see it as something foreign, Western, or associated with foreign values.”

Chung calls the latter findings surprising but points out that cultural stereotypes can perpetuate false assumptions about certain consumer groups, thus making this kind of market research all the more important for truly understanding market opportunities.

Chung describes the work she is doing now as “exciting” and says she feels very lucky to be doing something helpful.

“From a cause perspective, there [is] quite a lot of evidence that this work is impactful.” Perhaps reluctantly, the humble researcher even admits “it’s kind of a dream job being able to combine intellectual interests while working on an impactful cause.”

But now Chung is thinking about what she calls “the last mile,” making sure people are actually using the information that is gathered, as well as making it even easier to do so. “This is why I am conducting research on how research is used,” she adds, to design studies and projects that actually lead to improved decisions and impactful actions.

Jah Ying Chung, a food researcher in China, poses for a photo on an urban pedestrian bridge. Jah Ying is the co-founder of The Good Growth Co., which researches Chinese consumers' attitudes toward food and works in the plant-based/alternative protein and animal welfare spaces. Hong Kong, China, 2022. #unboundproject / We Animals

Jah Ying Chung, a food systems researcher and entrepreneur in China, poses for a photo on an urban pedestrian bridge. Jah Ying is the co-founder of The Good Growth Co., which researches Chinese consumers’ attitudes toward food and works in the plant-based/alternative protein and animal welfare spaces. Hong Kong, China, 2022. #unboundproject / We Animals

Finally, when asked what her personal hope is for farmed animals in China and for the future of the plant-based food and alt-protein movement in Asia, in true researcher form Chung answers with questions: “What does it look like from the Chinese perspective?” she asks. “What does welfare mean, what does a good life mean?” She says she does not yet know the answer, and that’s what keeps her so invested in this cause.

“Discovering what good looks like from the perspective of Asian stakeholders, and trying to connect it with those from the West,” she says, “that [is] the most fascinating part of the work.”

Written by Jessica Scott Reid

 

Sneha Shrestha

Sneha Shrestha

Sneha Shrestha

Founder of Sneha's Care, a shelter for street dogs in Nepal

 

Photos by Jo-Anne McArthur.

Interview and story by Sayara Thurston.

Sneha Shrestha didn’t want a dog.

“I wasn’t an animal lover. I wasn’t even a dog lover.”

Photo: A rescue dog naps in the sun at Sneha’s Care.

She tells me this as we’re surrounded by more than a hundred dogs at Sneha’s Care, the shelter that Shrestha runs outside of Kathmandu in Nepal. More than a dozen of the animals are paralyzed from the waist down and many of them are recovering from horrendous injuries —  missing legs and ears and eyes and parts of their snouts — but all running, barking, playing joyfully in a space where they know they are safe and loved. 

Four years ago, after much pestering from her husband, Shrestha finally agreed to get a puppy. Two puppies, actually, though Shrestha insisted that they be bought from a breeder — she didn’t want street dogs in her home. 

Photo: Rescue dogs getting some afternoon sun at Sneha’s Care.

Despite her reluctance, one of the puppies, Zara, quickly stole Shrestha's heart.

“She was more than a family member for me. 

She was like a child.”

Zara would wait at the gate for Shrestha and her husband to come home from work every day. Shrestha started getting up earlier to walk the dogs and spend time with them. But one day, Zara wasn’t at the gate at the end of the day. Shrestha found her inside, vomiting blood.

She’d been poisoned by a neighbour who didn’t like her barking. And despite desperate efforts to save her, she died four days later. Shrestha was devastated. “In Hindu culture, when a family member dies, we don’t eat anything for 13 days. I did this for my dog.”

Knowing how Zara had suffered — and how unjustly — Shrestha began to see street dogs differently. She started feeding them, carrying dog biscuits with her wherever she went. She started noticing how many of them had injuries and desperately needed vet care. 

Photo: A volunteer and a rescue dog at Sneha’s Care in Nepal.

Photo: Sneha Shrestha and some of the dogs she cares for at her shelter.

She began paying for space at a local kennel to give dogs shelter, care, and regular meals. Within a month, the kennel was full. But Shrestha wasn’t satisfied and she didn’t like that she wasn’t in charge of how the kennel was run. So, with the support of her husband, she sold a house she owned and opened a shelter. 

Video Top: Laundry drying at the shelter, which sits just outside of Kathmandu.
Video Bottom: A rescue dog gets some love at Sneha’s Care.
Main Photo: A rescue dog in his crate at Sneha’s Care.

Today, Sneha’s Care has a new shelter facility, a team of veterinarians and technicians, and welcomes volunteers from around the world who come to spend time helping the dogs recover and find new homes (although some live permanently at the shelter). 

Photo: A rescue dog with a scarred face at Sneha’s Care.

As we talk, Shrestha looks out at the paralyzed dogs — most of them were injured in hit and run cases. People ask her why she doesn’t euthanize them. “My father was paralyzed for 17 years. We never thought about euthanizing him,” she says poignantly. She says the only difference between him and the dogs is that “my father could speak. And he explained to me that he wanted to live. Maybe these dogs also want to live. I don’t have the right to euthanize them.”

Photo: A disabled rescue dog gets some exercise outside Sneha’s Care.

Shrestha can’t buy dog wheelchairs in Nepal but she imports them. She laughs,

 “when I put the paralyzed dogs in the wheelchairs, they run faster than the four-legged dogs!” 

After she opened the shelter and realized how much love she had for dogs suffering on the streets of Kathmandu, Shrestha suddenly saw all animals in a new light. She realized that she was calling herself an animal lover, but in practice, she was only showing that love to dogs. So she became vegan. 

Photo: Volunteers help all the dogs get exercise outside Sneha’s Care in Nepal.

Today, Shrestha is one of Nepal’s most vocal and visible animal advocates. “I want to be a voice for the voiceless,” she says. Shrestha recently successfully campaigned for the Nepalese government to adopt the country’s first animal protection law, as well as new standards covering buffaloes in transport, who suffer in horrendous conditions on the journey from the India-Nepal border. 

“It’s not only people who teach you humanity, 

I learned humanity from these animals.”

She was nominated as Youth Icon Of The Year 2018 by Women With Vision’s 100 Most Influential Women Of Nepal. Most of her volunteers and supporters are women. “Women are full of love. They have so many passions, helping people, helping animals. Women can save the world.”

Are things changing? Absolutely, she says. “Nepal is changing, society is changing.”

Photo: Photo: Staff, volunteers, and visitors spend time with the rescue dogs at Sneha’s Care.

Shrestha believes that educating young people about protecting animals is paramount. “I was never taught in school to be kind,” she says, but now she sees local children visiting the shelter and donating their pocket money. 

And it’s not just us who can teach compassion. “The most important thing is to have humanity. It’s not only people who teach you humanity, I learned humanity from these animals. These animals taught me everything.”

“Women are full of love. They have so many passions, helping people, helping animals. Women can save the world.”

Zara’s memory keeps her motivated. “Zara inspired me to build this shelter. I have her photo beside my bed. I see her every day and she motivates me to help animals.” 

 “She is the reason I have this shelter.”

The animal protection movement in Nepal has many challenges in front of it, but Zara’s legacy is that Shrestha will always be there to face them.

Learn more and support Sneha’s Care.

Photos and video by Jo-Anne McArthur. Interview and story by Sayara Thurston.