Voice for Asian Elephants Society

Our mission is to protect endangered Asian elephants of India by preserving corridors for wild elephants and restoring their habitats, while providing basic knowledge and tools to the people living near the forest fringes to alleviate human elephant conflict, thereby fostering peaceful coexistence between people and wild elephants.

In realizing our vision and mission:
1) Create elephant corridors and restore their lost habitat to protect Asian elephants in collaboration with the state forest departments
2) Alleviate HEC through capacity building and training programs for the local communities living on the forest fringes, and creating sustainable communities
3) Provide the native people near the forest fringes basic necessities and survival tools like flashlights, the first line of defense to protect themselves and elephants
4) Organize youth empowerment programs to cultivate empathy and compassion for elephants, and empower them to pursue ecological studies and elephant conservation
5) Conduct sensitization workshops for bureaucrats, law enforcement authorities, religious institutions, and decision makers, to advocate for legislative changes in tackling wildlife crime and ending elephant capture
6) Provide capacity building and hands-on training for elephant handlers (mahouts) to foster compassionate treatment of captive elephants, in collaboration with forest departments across states that house captive elephants

1) Build broad public awareness through film, education, nature immersion, and multi-media campaigns, to foster thoughtful shifts in ethical and cultural attitudes
2) Provide basic necessities, starting with flashlights, to people living on the forest fringes in order to help mitigate human-elephant conflict
3) Design and install EleSense to alert elephants of the arrival of trains and caution the train driver to slow down, thus preventing elephants from getting killed on India's deadly train tracks
4) Install elephant friendly fencing in villages to prevent electrocution deaths of elephants
5) Install large road signage to prevent elephant deaths as they cross major highways to reach the adjacent forest patches
6) Purchase land to create a permanent nursery and grow elephant friendly saplings, which will be transplanted in forests
7) Collaborate with Forest Departments to create corridors, and promote biodiversity, so elephants have enough land to sustain themselves
8) Gentle Giant Summit Project helps foster collaboration and communication between various governmental agencies to build consensus and work together in protecting wild elephants, while enhancing the living conditions of captive elephants
9) Conduct town-hall meetings with communities near the forest fringes to build awareness of the rescue program and engage them as partners in mitigating human/elephant conflict
10) Project Asian Elephants 101, a 7-day nature immersion program for the youth to help the younger generation reconnect with the natural world

We have a robust team of highly qualified Board of Directors and an Advisory Committee from versatile backgrounds. Our board was formed in November 2017. VFAES has recently recruited a digital strategist to harness the power of social media, especially during the COVID lock down. We also depend on talented and dedicated volunteers, who are assisting with social media, graphics, and other fundraising tools

The VFAES board holds quarterly “virtual" meetings, and is working to establish a governance structure and put financial and other controls in place and to create and implement a fundraising plan. The VFAES Board of Directors currently stands at five, and the five Advisory Board members are world-renowned elephant and animal welfare experts, and we will continue to seek qualified candidates until we have at least ten Board of Directors. VFAES is staffed by a small but passionate, highly educated and efficient Board of Directors from various walks of life.

Sangita Iyer, Founding Executive Director of Voice for Asian Elephants Society, based in the United States is a highly experienced award-winning nature and wildlife journalist, an independent documentary filmmaker, and a biologist. Sangita is holds a Masters' degree in Environmental Education and Communication, a B. Sc. in Biology, and a post-graduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism (Dean's Honorary Role).

Nancy Lee Ma, CPA is the CEO and Founder of Crystal Clear Profits, Inc. She comes to VFAES with over 30 years of experience as a CPA and working with non-profit organizations, including small local non-profits and a national wildlife animal sanctuary with $3M in revenue. She has served in various financial capacities for the non-profit organizations as a board member and volunteer. Her passion is to raise human consciousness of the planet, and to educate the public on caring for our environmental resources and preservation of all endangered species.

Nancy Plant has been a lawyer for more than 30 years. She has practiced law in a variety of settings, including the biopharmaceutical industry and, most recently, the nonprofit sector, and has worked with organizations of all sizes and types, ranging from small, all-volunteer nonprofits to publicly held, Fortune 500 companies. Nancy is also a freelance grant writer, working with nonprofits in the environmental and social services fields. She is the co-author of two books about law and social issues and several articles.

Ravi Manian is our Budget Specialist. He is an IT Application Systems specialist who recently retired from the field after 30 years, the last 10 years having worked for 20th Century Fox. Ravi is also a cost accountant and brings his accounting expertise to help us compile a robust annual budget for the organization, while also helping produce project budgets for various projects.

1) We have delivered 4000 flashlights thus far, despite the COVID restrictions, meeting our goal, so tea plantation workers and elephants become alert of each other's presence (in West Bengal) and avert tragedies
2) EleSense - a high tech device to prevent elephant deaths on train tracks has been designed, ready to be installed in December in the norther region of West Bengal, in collaboration with forest and railway ministries
3) Installation of third face of the elephant friendly fencing is about to get under underway in the third village. Solar electric fencing, galvanized wires (not electrical) fencing, an eco friendly concoction that emanate potent odor to deter elephants are the specific methodologies we are using (in West Bengal) to stave off elephants from agricultural land and prevent electrocution deaths
4) For the first time ever reflective signage alerting drivers to slow down will be installed in elephant crossing areas along major roads that connect to the highways
5) One Gentle Giant Summit has been conducted so far with more than 200 stakeholders participating from various faculties, including forest, power supplier, works & engineering, railway authorities and conservationists
6) Project Asian Elephants 101 for youth involved 100 participants who graduated after a 7-day nature immersion program as Elephant Ambassadors
7) $40,000 has been earmarked to purchase land in Kerala and to create corridors. Our efforts have been thwarted because of COVID lockdowns across India
8) Sangita Iyer's 26-part short film series on Asian elephants was recently released on Nat Geo with almost 100,000 views in some of the films in a matter of two weeks.

Founding Executive Director, Sangita Iyer is constantly on the ground, providing numerous workshops to the forest department, alerting the authorities of the abysmal conditions that captive elephants suffer. Since 2009, Sangita Iyer has been tirelessly exposing atrocities against Temple Elephants in the southern Indian state of Kerala. In 2016, she produced a United Nations-nominated and multiple award-winning documentary, Gods in Shackles, to heighten awareness of the plight of Indian elephants exploited in glamorous cultural festivals.

As a biologist, journalist and filmmaker, it has been natural for Sangita to integrate science in her documentaries. She is the Executive Director and Producer of Gods in Shackles documentary that exposes the truth behind the glamorous cultural festivals, where temple elephants are exploited for profit behind the veil of culture and religion. The film, has won 13 Awards, and was nominated at the United Nations General Assembly by the prestigious International Elephant Film Festival and Convention on the International Trade for Endangered Species (CITES).