Amanda Sun
Hong Kong SAR | Director, Arts for Good Foundation Hong Kong
Amanda Sun has rich experience in social science research, art research, project management, and creating educational art projects for students in Hong Kong. As an avid art lover and advocate of community inclusion, she believes in the social impact of art and its importance in fostering a diverse and inclusive society. This has led her to start the Arts for Good Foundation in 2020 to provide quality educational and experiential arts learning for children and youths aged 9 to 22 years old. She is a changemaker with the goal to drive positive change for future generations.
Before establishing Arts for Good Foundation, Amanda was an education researcher with the Education University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education. She holds a Master’s Degree in Tourism Policy and Planning, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing.
Ashling Findlay-Carroll
United Kingdom | Curriculum Team Manager of Performing Arts, Edinburgh College
Ashling Findlay-Caroll has worked in the arts in Scotland for almost 20 years as a performer, choreographer, director, facilitator, and most recently, a lecturer and curriculum team manager at Performing Arts Studio Scotland, Edinburgh College. Her practice spans participatory, education, and professional contextsand she has created work throughout the UK for and with organisations, including schools, National Health Service, Traverse Theatre, and Tron Theatre. Her approach to performance making is collaborative, centred on the physical, and pulls influences from embodied vocal work, physical theatre, performance art and dance and regularly occurs in non-traditional performance spaces.
Aung Than Oo
Myanmar | Regional Coordinator (Yangon, Myanmar), Mekong Cultural Hub
Dr Aung Than Oo is a humanitarian and public health specialist, and a Rotary Peace Fellow. He has been working for seven years in the heritage and peacebuilding sectors, in support of regional cooperation in the Mekong region. He has experience working with artists, heritage groups, and social enterprises to promote Burmese tourism and culture. He was a part of the United States Institute of Peace’s Generation Change Fellows Programme, ASEAN MY World 2030 Advocacy Programme, as well as the MY World 2030 Asia-Pacific Advocacy Programme.
Azis SH
Indonesia | Manager of Advocacy & Litigation Division, ECOTON Foundation
Azis SH is a lawyer at ECOTON (Ecological Observation and Wetland Conservation) Foundation, a non-profit organisation that focuses on environmental research, education, and advocacy in river conservation. As a strong advocate for environmental protection, he aims to educate the public on the importance of sustaining a clean and healthy environment and develop a love for the environment in the long run.
Cheryl Ho
Singapore | Director of Special Projects, Artwave Studio
Cheryl Ho is an actor, maker, and director of Special Projects with Artwave Studio, a team of practitioners that create audio-first experiences in culture, wellness, and sustainability. Her recent projects include “You’re Invited”, an interactive online experience on gather.town as part of Esplanade’s Huayi – Chinese Festival of the Arts, and “Artist’s Block”, an audio trail at the Stamford Arts Centre in Singapore. She has performed with theatre companies such as Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, and Malthouse Theatre in Australia. She is passionate about wellness, accessibility, and artist advocacy, and finds interest in embedding care frameworks in artmaking processes.
Dani
Indonesia | Consultant, UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development
Dani currently works as a consultant at the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development and has a degree in International Peace Studies from the University for Peace. For over a decade, he has been working in the areas of peace education and youth development. His interest also lies in interreligious and intercultural dialogue, as well as sustainable development. His previous role in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Indonesia saw him working in evidence-based advocacy and capacity building.
Duong Le Vo Thuy
Vietnam | Independent Consultant and Facilitator of International Cooperation
& Personal Development Program, FPT University
Duong Le Vo Thuy is a committed and passionate educator and creative practitioner. With ten years of experience across a wide range of personal and community development projects, she is equipped with leadership, creativity, and a global citizen mindset. She aspires to empower youth and communities by developing their skills and providing them opportunities through social innovation and the arts.
Enjiao Chen
China | Innovation Manager, National Gallery Singapore
Ernie (Enjiao) Chen is a passionate lifelong learner and proudly trilingual (English, Mandarin, and Python). In her role as Innovation Manager at the National Gallery Singapore, she works with artists, start-ups, and technologists to create prototypes that will benefit the arts and culture industry. She started the social enterprise - {Code for Asia} - in 2016 to democratise code as a medium of expression. In her free time, she can be found reading, gaming, travelling, or dabbling with A.I., data science, and Web3 technologies.
Evelyn Ang
Singapore | Head of Arts Department, AWWA School @ Napiri
Evelyn Ang is passionate about teaching young children and people with additional needs through art and exploration. She encourages them to unleash their imagination using a playful and interactive process of engagement, execution, and expansion by concentrating on the process. She has worked in the education sector for 17 years with two years in early childhood, and 15 years with students with additional needs in both government and social service schools. Currently, she is leading the arts department at AWWA School @ Napiri in bringing innovative and ground-breaking approaches to the way visual arts are being offered.
Ezzat Alkaff
Singapore | Head of Youth & Education, Wild Rice
Ezzat Alkaff is an arts manager, facilitator, and performer. He graduated with a degree in Drama, Applied Theatre, and Education from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (UK). From 2019 to 2021, he was elected as a Committee Member of the Singapore Drama Educators’ Association and was Co-Chair of their first online Theatre Arts Conference. He is currently the Head of Youth & Education at Wild Rice. His role includes spearheading projects with young people from the ages of 5 to 18 years and developing Wild Rice’s work with schools and in the community.
Hoang Thai Ly
Vietnam | Design Lecturer, University of Industrial Fine Art
Hoang Thai Ly has several years of experience as an interior designer, working on residential, cultural, and commercial projects. Her passion lies in creating creative spaces with energy conservation and designing spaces that leave a lasting impression. She hopes to inspire the next generation of youths through her work in the design field. She finds meaning in her every day through writing, planting trees, and training youths on their design journey.
Imran Manaff
Singapore | Co-Founder, Director, and Producer, Maya Dance Theatre
Imran Manaff is the Co-Founder, Managing Director, and Creative Producer of Maya Dance Theatre (MDT), a Singapore-based non-profit inter-disciplinary dance theatre company. It aims to raise awareness of social concerns by narrating social stories through moving bodies. Through MDT, he collaborates with artists to create socially engaged arts productions with audience engagement and outreach activities. Additionally, he is the founder of an arts education company, Apsara Asia Pte Ltd, a social enterprise that employs six persons with disability. As a cultural worker, he employs technology through the arts to connect communities, build an ecosystem, share art resources, and create opportunities.
Jamee Newland
Australia | Research Fellow, Kirby Institute @ UNSW, Sydney
Jamee Newland is a research fellow within the Global Health Research Group at the Kirby Institute, UNSW in Sydney. She works on cross-disciplinary social research in global public health, as well as sexual, reproductive, and maternal health in the Indo-Pacific Region. She has a strong interest in three main areas – understanding health and well-being through a socio-ecological and intersectionality lens; promoting the use of participatory and arts-based approaches for storytelling, meaning-making, and critical reflection; and using the arts as a medium for policy engagement and knowledge translation.
Jennifer Lee
Taiwan | Programme Manager, Mekong Cultural Hub
Jennifer Lee is a strong believer in art for a better society. After 20 years of working in theatre production and venue management, she is now building a sustainable ecosystem in the arts and culture industry. She focuses on supporting the more social engagement of the arts and developing multiple mechanisms for talent incubation, cross-cultural learning/understanding as well as regional cultural exchange and collaboration. She is currently working at the Mekong Cultural Hub, and her work in connecting cultural practitioners to learn and work collectively reinforces her belief that the arts can revamp and re-mend society.
Jun Hong Chee
Singapore | Musician, Ding Yi Music Company
Jun Hong Chee graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree (Honours) in Music from Royal College of Music – NAFA Bachelor of Music in 2019 under the tutelage of Jacek Mirucki (Singapore Symphony Orchestra) and Caroline Emery (Royal College of Music) with support from Kris Foundation. Besides performing, he conducts and teaches in local schools and is the strings instructor of The Purple
Symphony, the largest inclusive orchestra in Singapore. He aspires to be a leader in the music education sector for special needs, namely autism, and believes in a holistic approach to learning music. Currently, he is pursuing a Master of Music Education (Autism Concentration) at Berklee College of Music under a Music Education Scholarship.
Kamini Ramachandran
Malaysia | Director, Moonshadow Stories and The Storytelling Centre Ltd
Kamini Ramachandran is a pioneer in the field of oral storytelling in Asia. Through her work in Moonshadow Stories, she is known for promoting storytelling for adult audiences. She founded The Storytelling Centre Limited to advance the art of storytelling through the Young Storytellers Mentorship Programme and recently embarked on the inaugural Junior Storytellers Mentorship. She is also the creative producer of StoryFest Singapore. Known for her site-specific storytelling experiences, her programmes breathe life into cultural and heritage spaces. She is also the mentor for a virtual residency on the arts and climate change organised by the Asia-Europe Foundation and Casa Asia, as well as a mentor and resource panellist for the National Arts Council’s Community Arts Residency and the LASALLE College of the Arts’ Community Arts Mentorship Programme.
Keng Hao Chew
Singapore | Supervising Producer, Vue Networks Pte Ltd
Keng Hao Chew is a producer and researcher. For the past three years at Vue Networks, he has worked extensively with the elderly to design Cinematic Virtual Reality Experiences (CVRE) for reminiscence therapy. He is currently also pursuing a degree in Master of Arts (Research) at the Nanyang Technological University, whereby he explores the design of CVRE in inducing empathy towards persons with dementia in Singapore. He hopes to evolve into an influential producer who can educate the public to express concern for social issues.
Leilani Gallardo
The Philippines | Regional Communications Coordinator, Coral Triangle Center
Leilani Gallardo is an environmental and science communication professional with more than a decade of experience in project management, leading outreach, and facilitating transboundary learning across countries in the Asia Pacific region. Currently, she is the Regional Communications Coordinator at the Coral Triangle Center, a non-profit organisation based in Bali that focuses on inspiring generations to care for the oceans through innovative methods such as art, science, culture, technology, and gamification. She was born and grew up in the Philippines and has lived in New York and Bangkok before moving to Bali, where she is currently based.
Mae Aguinaldo-Mapa
The Philippines | Freelance Artist
Mae Aguinaldo-Mapa is an artist based in Manila. She has produced several socially engaged art projects in Southeast Asian cities, and these. have strengthened the collaborative and cooperative aspects of her artmaking. Among these projects are one-on-one story-making sessions, DIY fashion workshops, and a found-object sculpture promoting sustainable tourism. In 2021, she was among the selected participants for the UNIDEE Residency: Groundwork for Embedded Arts Practice.
Manithip Vongphachanh
Laos | Executive Director, The XYZ Art and Culture Promote Center
Manithip Vongphachanh is a fashion entrepreneur who co-founded The XYZ Art Center, a space that supports Lao artists as well as LeLao, an ethical fashion brand. As a practitioner and entrepreneur in Laos’ creative sector, she empowers local artistic work spanning all creative industries in Laos, and actively promotes innovation through fashion, the arts, and culture.
Mark Beau De Silva
Malaysia | Programme Director, Taylor's University
Mark Beau De Silva has been an arts worker with The Actors Studio Malaysia and an educator since 2001. Currently the Programme Director for the Bachelor of Performing Arts Programme at Taylor’s University in Malaysia, he is passionate about devising stories that highlight social issues, some of which include women’s issues and the environment. He is currently investigating hierarchies and gender for a piece to be staged in Cambodia under the Asian Youth Theatre Festival 2022.
Nghia Nguyen Hoang
Vietnam | Hip Hop Dance Teacher
Nghia Nguyen Hoang teaches hip hop to students at Phare Ponleu Selpak Performing Arts School (Cambodia), Blue Dragon Children's Foundation (Vietnam), and street children in Hanoi, Vietnam. As a hip-hop dancer, he has participated in tournaments and performed all over Vietnam from 2008 to 2019. He also organises events to raise awareness about human trafficking through dance as an art form. Dancing has enabled him to find his groove and purpose in life, and he hopes to be a changemaker for the next generation of children.
Pallavi Chander
India | Freelance Artist, Creative Arts Therapist, and Consultant
Pallavi Chander is an artist and creative arts therapist in Bangalore. She works with individuals experiencing neuro-divergence, young people and adults challenged with mental health concerns, and their caregivers. She practices at Turiya, an initiative she founded that uses drama, movement, visual arts, storytelling, music and play to facilitate creative processes. Currently, she runs community-based projects with various grassroots organisations and institutions in urban and rural spaces. She is keen to explore research, education, and indigenous approaches to mental health and well-being with communities.
Prasanna Kapoor
India | Secretary, Bewajah
Prasanna Kapoor is passionate about creating empowering spaces for young people to drive dialogue, action, and change, and does that through two artsbased organisations - Bewajah, and the Himalayan Study Centre. Through an arts-integrated approach, she works with adolescents and youths on the values of self-awareness, empathy, and non-violence, and responsible citizenship. With
a decade-long career as a project management professional for non-profits in education and the environment, she now collaborates with arts for good practitioners across sectors and borders to design and implement programmes that harness the power of arts and culture to develop the capacities and agency of young people.
Randel Urbano
The Philippines | Associate Director of Education and Public Programs,
Metropolitan Museum of Manila
Randel Urbano is the Associate Director for Education and Public Programs at the Metropolitan Museum of the Manila. With eight years of experience working in several Philippine contemporary art museums, he is skilled in cultural coordination, art preparation and production support, community work, and exhibit design. From 2019 to 2022, he was the British Council East Asia Arts Manager and helped to support programmes on cultural exchange, arts grants, capacity building, and networking in 14 East Asian countries and the UK, with a focus on Southeast Asia.
Roshini Sridhar
India | Freelance Theatre Worker and Drama Therapist
Roshini Sridhar is a Drama and Movement Therapist who recently graduated from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Originally from India, she is currently based in the UK. Over the past six years, she has worked with various populations in the capacity of a therapist, theatre teacher, and trainer. Her current interests lie in exploring the acceptability and accessibility of creative arts therapies and studying the neuroscience behind this healing.
Sanusha S Sritharan
Singapore | Programmes Facilitator, The Tapestry Project SG
Sanusha S Sritharan is an educator, facilitator, and dancer. As a facilitator with The Tapestry Project SG, which is a mental health non-profit, she runs narrative
therapy-based journalling workshops for youths. As a Bharathanatyam dancer since the age of seven, she is fascinated with the concept of exploring movement, somatic therapy, and giving voice to the worlds contained within our bodies. Her writings have been published in “Mahogany Journal” and “What We Inherit: Growing Up Indian”. Most recently, she drew on her professional background in public policy to explore mental health advocacy at Steinberg Institute in California, through the US State Department’s Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Professional Fellows Programme.
Sue Lyn Lim
Malaysia | Arts Programme Manager, HumanKind
Sue Lyn Lim is an art therapist and arts programme manager at HumanKind Malaysia. She is also a registered art therapist in the Australian, New Zealand, and Asian Creative Arts Therapies Association – a professional body that represents creative arts therapists in these regions. She focuses on supporting individuals who struggle with anxiety, self-esteem, medical illness, and traumatic experiences. She has facilitated arts-based mental health community projects in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. She holds a Master’s Degree in Art Therapy from the LASALLE College of the Arts and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics. Her ongoing artmaking is directed towards self-inquiry and discovery.
Umaima Ehtasham
India | Senior Manager of Training and Curriculum, Slam Out Loud
Umaima Ehtasham has been contributing to the education and social sector in India and is currently a Senior Manager of Training and Curriculum at Slam Out Loud. She is leading the design efforts to develop key socio-emotional and 21st-century skills through arts-based opportunities for children from disadvantaged communities. She is passionate about leveraging arts for climate action and has
designed a digital game prototype to creatively address climate change with UNESCO. Through her former experiences as a Gandhi Fellow and the Ministry of Rural Development, she has developed resources and programmes related to upskilling, sustainability, and education for tribal and underserved communities in India.
Wenny Yosselina
Indonesia | Design and Illustration Research Assistant, KIBA ITB (Kelas Ilustrasi
Buku Anak Institut Teknologi Bandung / Children Design and Illustration Class
of Bandung Institute of Technology)
Wenny Yosselina is an illustrator, designer, project manager, and researcher in Bandung. Her passion for design and illustration for children has motivated her to design visual media for the welfare and education of children with special needs. Together with her team at KIBA ITB University, she has been providing disability tools and children's books through community-based projects to children with autism and children with low vision.