2022 A2ELP Representatives

We are pleased to introduce the participants of the 2022 Australia-ASEAN Emerging Leaders Program (A2ELP).

Leaders amongst their country’s young entrepreneurs, the following social entrepreneurs span social enterprises around mental health, agriculture, sex education, the environment, indigenous communities, education, waste, fashion and more.

Wipaphan Wongsawang

ThaiConsent
Thailand
Born in 1992, Wipaphan is originally from Chiang Mai, Thailand. Wipaphan started her first career as a media producer for social causes in 2013. She performed numerous awareness-raising projects on social-related topics for local, cross-regional and international organizations.
Wipaphan is well-known for the Thaiconsent project established in 2015 as a hobby; the group has devoted its time and resources to promoting gender equality in Thailand. Thaiconsent activities include participation in panels, media and event production, implementing educational tools, hosting workshops and seminars, etc. Thaiconsent established its own company in 2021, intending to obtain Social Enterprise status by 2022.

Siti Jaafar

Kilang ReRoot
Brunei
Siti Jaafar, the Founder and Managing Director of Kilang ReRoot (KRR) is an aspiring research analyst who shares a passion for Asian studies and literature; a part-time entrepreneur; and a full-time change maker at heart. An English Literature Graduate of 2020, she took a different career journey soon after to pursue entrepreneurial adventures as she is a keen advocate for the environment, climate actions, inclusivity, and women empowerment.
Rewarded ‘top selected winners’ for several entrepreneurship programs in 2021, she is determined to push forward with her Kilang ReRoot projects to build a growing community of environment enthusiasts, and alike changemakers.

Abbie Williams

Letters of Hope
Australia
Abbie Williams founded Letters of Hope in 2018 following on from her own journey with mental health. Letters of Hope aims to spread kindness, raise awareness, and break the stigma around mental health one letter at a time through sending handwritten letters to those who are going through a tough time.
Through sending these letters, Letters of Hope shares helpful coping strategies, words of empowerment, and connects those who are struggling with the support that could turn things around. Abbie’s aim is for Letters of Hope to educate the community on all things mental health and inspire others to be kind.

Yen Trinh Thi Hai

Karuna Vietnam Social Enterprise and ThanhHoa Youth Change Makers
Vietnam
Founder of Karuna Vietnam Social Enterprise and ThanhHoa Youth Change Makers, she strongly believes in the power of the youth to make change in this uncertain times, to protect the environment and to make a just and better world.
Karuna in Sanskrit means compassion, the company is making an attempt to practice compassion within its organization culture, its partners, communities and the Earth. They are collaborating with farmer cooperatives from far-off destinations in ThanhHoa province to bring high quality products to customers in alignment with improving socio-economic life for the ethnic groups.

Taylor Hawkins

Foundations for Tomorrow
Australia
Taylor is Managing Director of Foundations for Tomorrow, a NFP with the mission of future-proofing Australia’s interests and advancing the consideration of ‘future interests’ in government and industry decision making. Taylor also runs her own boutique consultancy, Future Frontiers Group, which focuses on leadership development and sustainable business growth.
Taylor also holds several roles within the Global Shapers Community, including sitting on the Global Advisory Council, having been a member of the Davos Lab Taskforce, co-leading the Next Generation ESG pillar, and being a member of the Board of Directors for the Global Shapers Community Australia Ltd.

Anastasia Pavlovic

Mekar Collective
Australia
Anastasia is the co-founder of Mekar Collective, a fashion social enterprise that upcycles Indonesian batik factory fabric cut offs into elegant, easy to wear pieces. Through their innovative nature, these pieces highlight the beauty of batik & importance of sustainability. Profits of Mekar go towards scholarships for young women living in Bandung aged 16-25 to help them with their education & school studies.
Anastasia has always been passionate about the ASEAN region, having lived in Singapore for 4.5 years, taught English in Thailand and gone on student exchange in Indonesia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Indonesian Studies & Sociology from the University of Sydney. As part of A2ELP, she is eager to scale the number of scholarships provided to even more young women across Indonesia.

Mathew Townsend

Nature Freedom Australia
Mathew understands the power that comes from connecting with nature. And he knows it’s even better when you can explore the outdoors with others. Yet as someone who lives with autism and a hearing impairment, he felt excluded from both environmental groups and employment in the sustainability space.
This is why in 2017, he founded Nature Freedom – a social enterprise that gives people from all walks of life and all abilities the opportunity to connect with nature and each other. Nature Freedom runs a range of eco crafts and environmental workshops in South-East Queensland, with more outdoor activities planned. Mathew’s ultimate goal is to hire more people with disabilities and set a good example of what the community and employment space should look like.

Alouny Senduangdeth

2nd Hand World
Laos
Alouny is an enthusiastic fresh graduate passionate about the environment and community development. She is on her journey to build her social enterprise, 2nd Hand World, and aspires to raise awareness on climate issues and increase society’s engagement for sustainable communities in Lao PDR.
2nd Hand World is an online marketplace where it connects buyers, sellers, donors and communities together with 2nd hand goods. It was established to prevent damage to the landfill and air from used items that is rapidly increasing from fast consumption. Alouny believes everyone can make an impactful change to their own society with their own hands.

Sing-Suen Soon

Sonder Social
Singapore
Suen is the co-founder of Sonder Social, a social enterprise advocating social procurement to benefit communities in Asia Pacific. She wears multiple hats, from maintaining meaningful partnerships with social enterprises to pitching client projects and managing on-ground logistics. Her vision is for corporate and shoppers to have a better appreciation for quality products made by communities that champion social outcomes, simply through Sonder Social’s service and networks of impact partners.
Suen’s love for social entrepreneurship began during her university days, when she was introduced to business models that incorporated social elements. She has since supported social entrepreneurial work at the Singapore Committee for United Nations Women, Beyond Social Services, Singapore International Foundation, and currently, SecondMuse.

Sepri Andi

Social Connect
Indonesia
Andi earned a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations focused on development. He has over four years of experience building communities across different issues in Indonesia.
Recently, he took a full-time job to create one of the growing mental health communities called Social Connect. Before founding Social Connect, Andi was a mental health survivor. Through Social Connect, Andi and his team successfully reached 3 million youth online through a self-love campaign launched during the COVID-19 outbreak. Since then, Andi has been building a safe space, forums, and virtual friends for mental health survivors like himself, with more than 50,000 members to date.

Sreypouv Tan

Agro Agape and Teukdorm Pka Khmer Honey
Cambodia
I’m a founder of Agro Agape and a CEO of Teukdorm Pka Khmer Co., Ltd. The purpose of my two businesses are to promote local products to create market chances for farmers in order to build agriculture development and protect biodiversity.
Teukdorm Pka Khmer Honey a beekeeping business model that combines economic development with protection of biodiversity hotspots.
Agro Agape is a whole supply chain business model that stands behind farmers to create a support system by training and developing their products to match market requirements. We want to see communities get a better income through our business and create ecosystem biodiversity.

Kyaw Myat Hein (Nolan)

Real Youth Initiate
Myanmar
I am an engineer and a social entrepreneur who is always eager to share knowledge, promote learning, and love working on social and educational areas. Now, I have been actively involved in addressing the learning losses for youth in Myanmar to alleviate poverty and to reduce the ‘double injustice’ and narrow down the social and economic gaps between groups in societies.
Regarding social entrepreneurship, my personal interest and passion are creating a long lasting, sustainable, scalable, and accessible education system for the youth especially for those from vulnerable households, urban and rural areas in Myanmar.

Lisa Rapley

Yuludarla Karulbo
Australia
Lisa Rapley is a pround Gumbaynggirr woman from the NSW mid north coast. She is an Advisor working on Closing the Gap at the National Indigenous Australians Agency, and the co-founder of Yuludarla Karulbo, a youth driven social enterprise empowering young Indigenous people and communities to share their stories and culture.
She is deeply interested in finding ways to empower young Indigenous people from across the world through system disruption, capacity and ecosystem building.
Lisa is passionate about using systems thinking, Indigenous knowledge systems, and co-design principles to solve wicked problems.