5/20 – Caring for Life – The impact that only rigorous independently verified work can build.

As part of our 20 Years, 20 Wins series marking two decades of ACTAsia, this next win is not a single event or award but rather, a habit. Most charities assert the effectiveness of their programmes. ACTAsia has that claim independently tested, and it holds up. 

 

For ACTAsia, proof is part of the job. Caring for Life (CFL) is ACTAsia’s first-of-its-kind six-year education programme for children aged 6 to 12, teaching them that animals, people and the environment are all connected. Part of why it works is how it is built: rather than treating animal welfare as a standalone subject, CFL weaves it into the same lessons that teach emotional intelligence, respect for others and care for the environment, so that compassion becomes something children practice across every part of their day, not a topic confined to one class.

Rather than relying on its own account of what the programme achieves in classrooms, ACTAsia invites external researchers to measure its impact and publish what they find. Multiple studies – including a large-scale longitudinal inquiry – in collaboration with the City University of New York (CUNY) have studied how CFL impacts empathy, prosocial behaviour, attitudes toward animals and the environment amongst its students. For 13 years, that work has been led by Dr. William Ellery Samuels of Hunter College CUNY, whose evaluations and ongoing research have found consistent, measurable growth in exactly the areas CFL is designed to shape. The findings are a confirmation that ACTAsia’s programme isn’t just well-intentioned, but highly effective: and this is the win we are celebrating today. 

CFL’s Credibility is the Strategy (Not just the evidence) 

ACTAsia works in a region where trust must be earned deliberately. Proof of effectiveness turns goodwill into real support: support with funders, with education authorities, with the professionals who ACTAsia asks to carry to the work forward. 

This is exactly why ACTAsia places so much emphasis on collaboration. We understand that lasting change cannot be realised alone. It depends on allies, on the ripple effect. This is why ACTAsia’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) partnership matters as more than a credential, and why the organisation has extended its academic collaborations further still via the Institute for Change – briefly, its work with Suzhou University of Science and Technology, with MBA students at Brunel University London’s Business School and postgraduate students at the University of the Arts London, aim at putting fresh research and ideas behind ACTAsia’s mission. Each partnership brings the next generation of professionals into contact with a programme that has already proven itself, giving students a real-world case study to test their own thinking against. ‘Being in universities creates the changes we advocate for amongst our future leaders,’ says ACTAsia founder and CEO, Pei Su. 

Starting Early, Building Forward 

The evidence and the partnerships matter because of where it all began: not in academic research settings or university lecture halls, but in a primary school classroom in China with six-year-olds (well before those same children might go on to become the researchers, designers or advocates that our university partnerships may later reach). Proven effectiveness, coalition-building, and early intervention are not three separate priorities for ACTAsia, but the same idea. They are applied at different points along the same line: change that lasts is change that has been tested, shared and carried forward by people – beyond the organisation itself.

If you would like to support the research and programmes behind Caring for Life, learn how you can get involved and consider donating today. 

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