20 Year Success Story – Nel van Amerongen

12 November 2026

Founder of ACTAsia Netherlands

Psychologist Nel van Amerongen has been part of ACTAsia from the very start. She helped Pei Su get the charity off the ground in 2006, founded ACTAsia’s Dutch branch in 2007, and has supported its work ever since.

From a Dutch Farm to a Lifelong Mission

Nel van Amerongen grew up on a small family farm in the Dutch countryside. Today she describes herself, with a smile, as a “silver fox”, and works as a psychologist. From an early age she knew her mission in life: to stand up for the most vulnerable in society, whether elderly people, children or the environment, and above all for animals, who have no voice of their own.

As a teenager, she became what she calls a compassionate consumer. She stopped eating meat, used only cruelty-free make-up and wore no animal skins. She volunteered at animal shelters and raised money for charity with her schoolmates.

Nel is clear about what drives her. “I don’t want to be regarded as the crazy cat lady,” she says. Her commitment comes from a profound sense of moral injustice. “Animals are not here to be used and abused in order to serve our preferences in food, fashion, beauty or entertainment.”

Meeting Pei

Nel first met Pei in the 1990s, when both worked for the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA). Pei was based at the head office in London; Nel started as a volunteer and went on to become WSPA’s regional manager in the Netherlands.

Even then, Pei’s thinking stood out. She argued that an imperialistic, project-based approach to animal protection had limited impact and could even backfire. Nel recalls how international pressure against dog eating in South Korea led to a rise in dog meat consumption, as local people moved to protect what they saw as a local tradition. Campaigns at the time tackled one issue after another, from bear dancing to dog eating. “When you put out one fire, another one would emerge.”

In 2005, Nel joined the Pioneer training course Pei organised in Italy, which equipped people from grassroots organisations across Asia with the skills to drive change from within their own societies. “In my opinion and experience, that empowerment was the way to create long-lasting change,” she says.

In early 2006, Nel left WSPA and moved to Singapore with her husband, Fred, eager to broaden their horizons in unfamiliar territory. At the same time, Pei asked her to join the new start-up, ACTAsia, as a volunteer for communications and fundraising. Nel said yes, and twenty years on she still divides her time between ACTAsia and her other work.

Building ACTAsia in the Netherlands

In 2007, Nel established ACTAsia’s Dutch branch. She built a supporter base from scratch and, drawing on her professional network, produced a website, promotional materials, social media updates, campaign reports and fundraising proposals. She has served on the Dutch branch’s board and compiles its annual financial reviews for Dutch supporters.

She did this with the help of people who gave their time freely. 

That early groundwork still shows today. For a small country, the Netherlands remains one of ACTAsia’s most generous communities of supporters.

Out from Behind the Desk

By the time Nel travelled to China with ACTAsia, around 2013, she had spent decades working for animal welfare: cleaning cages at her local animal shelter as a teenager, driving an animal ambulance, and eventually heading WSPA’s work in the Netherlands, “safe, from behind my desk,” as she put it. ACTAsia’s humane education tour was her chance to go out into “the field” and see first-hand what the work was for. She wrote down what she saw.

With local volunteers and an interpreter, Nel began at a fur wholesale market in Guangzhou. Rows of shops spread over two floors, hung with countless pelts of foxes, mink, rabbits and raccoon dogs: “the biggest amount of dead animals’ skin I have ever seen.” The sellers had no idea anyone might object, so they spoke freely about quality and origin, dog and cat fur included. One told her, almost proudly, that his dog fur was “real German Shepherd” and “real Golden Retriever”, sourced from China’s northern provinces and sold all over the world.

The pet market came next. Puppies, dogs and kittens sat in wire cages all day as temperatures climbed past 35°C in the shade. Most were lethargic, undernourished or injured, and some had already died. At one stall the owner had shut up shop and left his animals behind, and an emaciated kitten tried to climb into its water bowl, only to find it empty. “We could only provide some water,” Nel wrote. Sellers received a “fresh supply” every weekend, and a local volunteer explained that animals which had outgrown their cuteness ended up in the bin or at the slaughterhouse. “It made me aware of the scale of animal abuse and the ignorance.”

The final stop came by chance. On the way to a bird market, the group passed a building where dogs were crying out and curtains were hurriedly drawn. The volunteer suspected an illegal slaughterhouse and called the police. By the time officers went in, the blood had been washed away, but a hammer and an axe remained as silent witnesses. In a corner stood piles of tiny crush cages, packed so tightly that the dogs inside could barely breathe. They were in such shock that they made no sound at all. Many still wore their collars: stolen pets, whose families would be missing them by the end of the day. The police took the butcher away for questioning, and the situation soon became too dangerous for the group to stay.

“The despair and fear in those dogs’ eyes still haunt me at night, as well as the fact we couldn’t save them,” Nel wrote at the time. More than a decade on, the image remains: “I can still picture them very, very vividly.”

The tour itself showed her a way forward. At ACTAsia’s humane education workshops, educators and animal welfare volunteers eagerly took in information to carry back to their schools and organisations. After everything she had seen, that gave her “some sense of hope.”

Nel came home with a clear conviction. “These cruel practices can only stop if we continue to educate people about animal sentience,” she wrote. “I do know, more than ever, what we are doing it for.”

Why Education Comes First

In ACTAsia’s early days, the team received a constant stream of reports of “unimaginable atrocities towards animals, either deliberate or from ignorance.” This led Nel to study the link between violence towards animals and other forms of violence. Her research strengthened her conviction that ACTAsia had to start at the root: humane education for children, alongside stronger laws and their enforcement.

As a psychologist, Nel explains that empathy is an innate capability, one that can be developed or suppressed. Children feel a natural empathy for animals, which is why so many early children’s books are about them. Culture then teaches us which species to eat and which to cherish. “We have our genetic make-up, but the rest is written upon us all day long.”

That cultural pull runs deep because humans want to belong. “When we feel part of a tribe, we feel more safe,” she says. Among the fur sellers, she sees their disconnection between an animal’s suffering and the shiny, warm product in front of them, reinforced by peers who all treat it as normal.

Nel felt this pressure herself as a young vegetarian, when vegetarianism was far from common. Meat eaters would challenge her, pointing at her shoes and asking whether they were leather. “Later on I realised that my different choice made them feel there might be something wrong with their choice,” she says. “I was challenging their moral code.”

Making the Case for the Long Game

Nel knows that education is a harder cause to fund than rescue. Appeals that show animals suffering, or rescued, draw an immediate response. Education is more sustainable and far-reaching, yet people see it as indirect and long-term. “It remains a challenge to constantly make that link between the emotional impact and what is regarded as a logical, fact-based issue, which education is.”

Her work as a psychologist offers a parallel. People faced with someone else’s pain often rush to fix it, partly to ease their own discomfort. Donors who give in response to a shocking case are reacting in a similar way, and Nel sees real value in that reaction, because it shows people are horrified by what is happening to another living being. “That is somehow at the heart of compassion and empathy.” ACTAsia’s task is to add one step: to show how education can prevent that suffering in the first place.

Her own expectations have grown wiser over time. As a young, idealistic campaigner, she believed that if everyone knew what she knew, the cruelty would stop. She later set herself a humbler goal: if her efforts made life better for just one animal, they were worthwhile. “Now, seeing the growing numbers every year of schools, kids, vets and consumers reached by ACTAsia’s outreach makes me proud, because that goes far beyond that one animal.”

Looking to the Next Twenty Years

“We have spent two decades building the foundations,” says Nel. Over the next twenty years, she hopes to see compassion become a structural norm, built into education, the veterinary field and industry alike. She would like Caring for Life education fully integrated into all school’s curricula, and she wants plant-based food and fur-free fashion to move from niche trends to the standard choice.

Asked why people should support ACTAsia, Nel points first to its record. “We have a 20-year proven track record. We are not in an experimental phase; we’re not a start-up anymore. Over the last 20 years we have moved the needle in an area which everyone thought would be impossible.”

She credits ACTAsia’s strategic, culturally intelligent approach, and above all CEO and Founder, Pei. “None of this would have been possible without her. She is an incredible visionary, and she has this cultural sensitivity which makes her able to navigate between the East and the West.” ACTAsia also addresses the whole ecosystem, Nel adds: the treatment of animals, people and the environment, all of them interconnected.

Nel lives these values herself. She is vegan, hardly ever flies, and sees her work as her contribution to the world. “And why do I do that? For the future of your kids. So now you should do your part.”

Thank you, Nel, for twenty years of dedication, from ACTAsia’s very first days to building our community of supporters in the Netherlands.

As ACTAsia looks toward its next 20 years, we invite you to be part of the story. Learn how you can get involved and consider donating today.

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