Award Winning, year after year

This is win #19 in our 20 Years, 20 Wins series, and it covers something that has built up over the whole 20 years: the growing recognition of ACTAsia’s work, and who it has come from.

With 18 staff members across three continents,  ACTAsia is a small but powerful organisation. Even so, its work has been recognised by the Chinese government, by animal-welfare bodies in Asia and beyond, by China’s philanthropy sector and by the United Nations. Much of that recognition comes from fields that have nothing to do with animals. In 2015, the Chinese government named ACTAsia one of the Top 10 most influential organisations for urbanisation in China, at the 8th China International Urbanisation Summit. In 2025, ACTAsia won the Best Charitable Collective Award at the China Philanthropy Festival, recognising its Caring for Life education and its support for corporate ESG practices.

It is rare for education and animal welfare advocacy to be recognised at an urbanisation summit, or by an award that looks at corporate ESG practices. That is what this win is about. The awards below are a record of people in other fields looking at ACTAsia’s work and seeing something that mattered to their own, whether that was cities, children’s education, business or philanthropy.

Recognition close to home

Some of the earliest recognition came from the communities ACTAsia worked in. In 2016, Dalang Community in Shenzhen gave ACTAsia its First Prize for Social Construction and Innovation for the Caring for Life project, and the 3rd Shenzhen Charity Awards named Caring for Life its Best Charity Programme. A year later, Dalang Community Association named ACTAsia its Best Charity Partner for the same project. These came from the places where children were learning from the programme.

Animal-welfare bodies in Asia and beyond

The animal-welfare sector followed. In 2016, ACTAsia won Charity Team of the Year at the CEVA awards for its contribution to animal welfare through education. In 2017, Asia for Animals gave ACTAsia its Next Generation Award for the Caring for Life programme. The same year, Pei Su received the CEVA – International Cat Care Welfare Award of the Year at the Ceva Welfare Awards in Birmingham, UK, for her work promoting human and animal relationships and her dedication to children’s education. In 2018, the World Veterinary Association Animal Welfare Awards recognised Dr Zhijuan Yin, who heads ACTAsia’s veterinary trainer team in China, for outstanding work to protect and promote best practices in animal welfare (this is Win #13!).

Several of these awards were for children’s education, not for animal rescue or campaigning. The animal-welfare world was recognising a programme that teaches children to care about life.

China’s philanthropy sector

The recognition that has returned most often is from China’s own charity sector. Pei received the Charitable Leadership Award from Jiemian News, part of Shanghai United Media Group, in 2019. She was one of 15 leaders on the list, which also included Alibaba founder Jack Ma. The award recognised her work promoting sustainable fur-free fashion and her dedication to children’s education through Caring for Life. Pei has said she felt honoured to receive it.

Pei has twice received the Public Welfare Personality Award, at the 9th China Charity Festival in 2020 and the 13th China Philanthropy Festival in 2024. ACTAsia has won the Best Charitable Collective Award twice, in 2022 and for 2025. Caring for Life was also named Best Charity Programme at the 10th China Charity Festival in 2021. A festival that has recognised the same organisation several times over several years suggests sustained work, not a single good year.

Recognition from the United Nations

The widest recognition has come from the United Nations. In 2021, ACTAsia was granted Special Consultative Status by the UN Economic and Social Council (this is Win #1!). That same year, the UN named Caring for Life an SDG Good Practice, and recognised the Fur Free Project and invited ACTAsia into its UN Fashion and Lifestyle Network. In 2022, Caring for Life was recognised as Good Practice again, at the UN Transforming Education Summit (this is Win #4!). ACTAsia was the first organisation to successfully put the fur issue in front of the UN, under the Responsible Consumption goal (this is Win #7!).

Each of these has its own story in this series. Taken together with the awards above, they show a pattern: local communities, animal-welfare bodies, China’s philanthropy sector and the UN have each recognised ACTAsia for what it contributes to their own concerns, not only for what it does for animals.

Every award on this list belongs to the children, teachers, vets and supporters who made the work possible. See the full list of ACTAsia’s awards, and read the stories behind them in the rest of the 20 Wins 20 Years series

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