Phoenix Zones Initiative

Phoenix Zones Initiative focuses on widespread ethical and structural change. We push forward legal, economic, and public policy to advocate for the most vulnerable and marginalized people and animals. Our programs, such as food, fiber, knowledge, community, and service, center on the intersections between humans, animals, and the planet’s wellbeing.

Phoenix Zones Initiative focuses on public education and outreach, policy research and analysis, the creation of diverse coalitions, advocacy for grassroots and systems-level action, and evidence-based models of social change. In order to advance meaningful and sustainable impact, Phoenix Zones Initiative advocates for high-yield changes in policy and practice.

Phoenix Zones Initiative is led by physicians and a diverse cross-sectoral team. Within its first year of operation, the organization assembled a team of dozens of individuals with critical expertise.

The organization’s co-founder, president, and volunteer CEO, Dr. Hope Ferdowsian, is a double-board certified internal medicine and preventive medicine physician with expertise in ethics and public health. Over the past two decades, Hope has worked across six continents to advance human and animal wellbeing, health, and rights. In the US, she has provided healthcare and advocacy for homeless, veteran, immigrant, and other vulnerable populations, while also working to end the exploitation of animals in laboratories and food production. She has led key educational, research, and policy initiatives, collaborated with the Office of the Surgeon General of the United States on global public health issues, and developed resources for nongovernmental organizations, national governments, and the World Health Organization. She has authored highly cited publications and spoken at academic institutions and through media outlets across the globe about connections between human, animal, and planetary wellbeing.

Additionally, Phoenix Zones Initiative’s senior leadership team consists of professionals with degrees in domestic and international law, cultural anthropology, sociology, and women’s studies, as well as concrete experience in nonprofit management, community relations, research, education, and advocacy. Together, members of the senior leadership team have a depth and breadth of expertise caring and advocating for children and adults with atypical psychiatric and cognitive abilities, Indigenous persons, sexual violence survivors, vulnerable animals, and many other marginalized individuals and communities. The team's expertise includes decades of programmatic and executive leadership experience, monitoring and evaluation for the United Nations and US State Department, and strategic winning international campaigns to advance social and environmental policy. Members of the team have ties to the US Fulbright Scholars Program, the European Environmental Bureau, the Animal Law and Policy Program at Harvard University, and other influential governmental, academic, and nonprofit organizations. They have written critically acclaimed books and articles on the impact of US migration policy, the US torture doctrine, and anti-civil rights policies, as well as the adverse treatment of animals in various sectors of society.

Phoenix Zones Initiative's strategic plan includes multi-year financial projections, and Phoenix Zones Initiative has received major financial commitments to:
1) Research and analyze complex, interconnected problems.
2) Identify holistic solutions that benefit people, animals, and the planet.
3) Advocate for systems-level reform and evidence-based models of change.

In Phoenix Zones Initiative’s first full year, people like you have already helped Phoenix Zones Initiative:
1) Inform and advance two federal bills in the US House and Senate that restrict or ban animal trafficking in the US and internationally, and which would also help prevent future pandemics.
2) Engage with intergovernmental organizations like UNICEF and national children’s rights organizations on how to work together to end child trafficking.
3) Advance support for human and nonhuman rights, health, and wellbeing through articles, editorials, white papers, webinars, the arts, and an effective advocacy toolkit.
4) Extend the influence of a health and rights-based message via conferences and webinars that have reached thousands of people.
5) Build novel coalitions with groups like the Harvard FXB Health and Human Rights Consortium, and environmental consortiums like the US Climate Action Network.
6) Establish working groups to provide key leadership on how to create more ethical and compassionate food, fiber, and research systems.
7) Co-edit a forthcoming Health and Human Rights Journal issue on ecological justice and the interconnected right to health for people and animals.
8) Launch tactical research and government agency audits to identify how governments could better meet the needs of the most vulnerable.

Learn more about Phoenix Zones Initiative's programs and progress at https://phoenixzonesinitiative.org.