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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Introducing Animal Empathy Philippines, published by Ging Geronimo on January 25, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Hi, everyone! I am excited to announce the launch of Animal Empathy Philippines (AEP), a spin-off organization of Effective Altruism Philippines. We are a new organization dedicated to community building work on effective animal advocacy (EAA) in the Philippines. Grant from the EA Animal Welfare Fund As EA Philippines’ incubatee, AEP is supported by a $64,000 grant from the EA Animal Welfare Fund. Last December, three of us at EA Philippines (Kate Lupango, Janaisa Baril, and I) received a 1-year, 1.53 FTE grant from them to do community building work on EAA in the Philippines. The grant is split into the following: 0.73 FTE for me 0.4 FTE for Kate Lupango 0.4 FTE for Janai Baril Shifting to An Animal Advocacy Career I (Ging Geronimo) learned about EA after joining EA Philippines’ 9-week Intro to EA Discussion Group held last May to July 2020. I took the Giving What We Can Pledge and started volunteering for 5-6 hours/ week at EA Philippines in December 2020. Prior to launching AEP, I worked for five years at the National Economic and Development Authority, the Philippines’ socioeconomic planning body, as a Communications and Stakeholder Engagement Associate. Since September 2021, I've been engaged as a Consultant for the World Bank’s Technical Assistance project to the Department of Agriculture. Kate Lupango is one of the co-founders of EA Philippines. She's a Funding Accountant at World Vision International and taking Master’s in Community Development at University of the Philippines Diliman. Kate was a former intern at Faunalytics and has over four years of experience in farmed animal advocacy. Janaisa Baril is a Communication and Events Volunteer at EA Philippines. She has helped with EA PH’s Local Charity Effectiveness Research, social media content, and monthly newsletters. Janai attended our 9-week Intro to Effective Animal Advocacy Fellowship, which motivated her to take action for farmed animals. She has a degree in Development Communication from University of the Philippines Los Baños. Why work on Farm Animal Welfare in the Philippines? The Philippines ranks 10th worldwide in terms of total farm animals alive, most of which are finfish and chickens, and yet there’s relatively very little work being done on farmed animal welfare. As of December 2021, there are only four organizations working on farmed animal welfare (FAW) in the Philippines. These include the Philippine Welfare Society (PAWS), Animal Kingdom Foundation (AKF), Fish Welfare Initiative (FWI), and Tambuyog Development Center.PAWS has been at the forefront of animal advocacy in the Philippines. They recently introduced a set of standards called The Better Chicken Option to educate local restaurants and consumers on better broiler chicken welfare. We’ve had meetings with PAWS, AKF, and FWI and we learned that the lack of high-quality candidates for jobs was the biggest bottleneck for establishing new programs or scale-up of those existing ones. Thus, it was clear to us that doing community building work on EAA is how we can make the greatest positive impact on farmed animals. Focusing on community building will enable us to multiply our impact by increasing the number of Filipinos who will take action for farmed animals. Why we launched and what our goals are Animal Empathy Philippines was conceived after EA Philippines conducted its first EAA fellowship last year. We thought that building a community of effective animal advocates would spark Filipinos’ interest in farmed animal advocacy. Through AEP, we aim to: Build, grow, and sustain a community of effective animal advocates; Expand talent pool in EA-aligned animal welfare organizations; and Kick-start a coalition of local farm...