Whether you’re writing to an audience you hope will read your post, assisting another organization, or venturing into uncharted territories with your advocacy, it all comes down to this: you’re there to help them (whoever they may be) help animals. You’re their intermediary. But to truly help someone, you need to understand where they’re coming from. You need to have empathy for them. If you don’t understand their background, their needs, their wishes, or their struggles, chances are, you’re not going to be as helpful as you could be.

If you’ve ever had a distant family member try to give you advice on your life problems, you probably know the feeling. More often than not, the advice is unhelpful because it fails to recognize the context. Sometimes, the greatest support is just showing up, offering a listening ear, and truly hearing what the person has to say.

That’s why, this October, we made it a priority to learn firsthand about the unique challenges and opportunities in the regions we support. At Asia Farm Animal Day (AFAD) in Hanoi, Vietnam, we had the chance to connect with advocates working in Asia and gain a deeper understanding of their needs. As capacity builders, it’s essential for us to understand and work within these contexts, and we’re excited to share what we learned.

Without further ado, here are our 3 takeaways from AFAD 2024.

1. Your Efforts May Not Be Paying Off Because You’re Not Reading the Room

It’s easy to fall into the trap of using a one-size-fits-all approach to advocacy. As obvious as it may seem, none of us are immune to it! More often than not, when you’re facing any challenges, it’s useful to stop and consider whether your strategies truly resonate within your audience’s context.

As longtime advocate Davina Goh, also known as Davina Da Vegan, explained during her talk at AFAD, in her home country Malaysia—a place where she initially had a hard time engaging the audience—cheap, unhealthy food is widely accessible. With Malaysia ranked as one of the most overworked countries in the world, many people face time and energy poverty. On top of that, Malaysia’s collectivist culture emphasizes community and harmony, making Western-style advocacy approaches less effective.

When Davina identified these differences, she decided to adapt her outreach strategy. She shifted to non-confrontational, community-oriented advocacy, and time-efficient, plant-based recipes using local ingredients. After years of struggling to connect, these changes finally allowed her to engage and inspire urban Malaysians.

What can this mean for your advocacy? To connect with your audience, go back to the basics: understand their unique needs, fundamental values, and barriers. Ask yourself: What obstacles might they face in making the changes you’re advocating for? What cultural values influence their choices? (For a deeper dive, check out Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory!). You can take it even a step further and ask yourself: What kind of story is your audience telling themselves—about themselves? As obvious as it may seem, by "reading the room," you can create strategies that resonate with your audience at its core.

Speaking of social media, let’s move on to the next takeaway.

2. When You’re Creating Content, Put Yourself in Your Reader’s Shoes

Creating content that resonates with your audience means stepping into their perspective. What catches their eye? What makes them pause, engage, and share? Our Board President, Ryuji Chua, founder of the Japanese animal advocacy organization Nekoyakihantaihan (ネコ焼き反対班), introduced a concept during his talk that he calls “meditative doomscrolling.” Most of us spend time scrolling on our phones—whether it’s during breakfast, before bed, or just to unwind.

Next time you catch yourself doing this, Ryuji suggests practicing awareness. Notice what grabs your attention and what you scroll past, and reflect on why. Ask yourself: What prompted me to engage with this post? What made me skip that one? These observations can later be applied to your own work.

Ryuji recommends focusing on two key aspects:

1) The content itself.

• If it’s a video, what were the first three seconds like?

• Was the post clear and to the point?

• Was the audio good—did it make you want to keep listening?

• If you skipped it, why? What turned you off or failed to grab your attention?

2) How it makes you feel.

• What emotions did the post evoke?

• Did it make you curious, happy, or inspired?

• Think about what prompted that reaction and how you could replicate it.

By practicing “meditative doomscrolling,” you can turn what might feel like mindless scrolling into a learning tool for creating better content. After all, we’re all content creators in some way—whether it’s an email, a blog post, or a social media campaign. Great content starts with understanding your audience’s perspective, and Ryuji’s advice is a simple way to practice that.

But what about perspectives we might miss entirely due to different lived experiences? Let’s dive into the next takeaway.

3. Act with the Marginalized Context in Mind

Whether through recruiting someone to your team or applying for a job yourself, you’ve likely heard of blind recruitment. It’s a process where identifying details like gender, age, name, location, race, and other personal data are removed from resumes to reduce bias. The idea is simple: treat everyone the same, and you create a level playing field. But in reality, blind recruitment doesn’t address systemic inequalities.

During the talk at AFAD, Sinergia Animal’s People and Operations Director Thai Costa shared why the organization doesn't follow blind recruitment. Instead of erasing identities, Sinergia Animal asks candidates to share how they self-identify, including whether they belong to a marginalized group, and consider the systemic barriers these individuals may have faced.

As Thai explained, marginalized groups often encounter significant obstacles in accessing education, training, and work experience—factors that can impact how their resumes appear. Blind recruitment doesn’t account for these disparities, which means qualified candidates from underrepresented groups may still be overlooked.

This approach highlights a critical point: “equal treatment” isn’t always equitable. True fairness comes from acting with the context in mind, not despite it.

Speaking of contexts, let’s shift our focus to the landscape of animal advocacy in Asia with some quick facts.

Fast Facts

• 75% of the world’s farmed animals are in Asia at any given time. This makes advocacy efforts in this region critical for global change.

• The top three capacity needs for Asian NGOs are: 1) funding, 2) communications, and 3) people. This was revealed in a survey conducted by The Asia for Animals Coalition (AfA) among its network of Asian NGOs, asking about their capacity needs and challenges.

• 98% of Chinese consumers are open to increasing their consumption of plant-based foods once they understand the health and environmental benefits, according to a ProVeg International survey.

Importance of AFAD

Events like AFAD are crucial for showing that we’re a unified movement. It reminds us that we’re all in this together, and puts the focus on equal and empathetic partnerships. Conferences like these give us the invaluable opportunity to meet advocates on the ground and to experience firsthand the diversity of challenges, strategies, and successes happening across the region.

VH’s Founder and President David van Beveren notes: “It was so heartwarming to see a conference on farmed animals in Asia get so much participation and attention. When you’re not working on the ground, it can be hard to keep up with the farmed animal landscape in the region. This conference gave us valuable insights into the important work happening and what we can learn from it.”

By coming together and learning from one another, we’re building a truly global movement—one that’s equipped to tackle challenges and maximize the impact of our advocacy.

In Closing: Context Matters

If there’s one key lesson from AFAD, it’s this: advocacy is most effective when it’s rooted in context. Whether you’re adapting your message to meet people where they are, creating content that resonates, or empowering diverse perspectives, acting with context in mind makes all the difference.

Ultimately, understanding where people are coming from helps us all move forward together, one step closer to a kinder world.

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