She rescued one puppy, then went to the schools

She was 8 when she saw a neighbour pour boiling water over a stray puppy. "I knew it wasn't right and that my inaction was also an action," she says. She rescued the puppy. Blackie now lives with her.

Not every stray gets that ending, she says. Millions of stray animals roam the streets in the Philippines, and many are abused, "often seen as an outlet for anger." She points to research linking animal abuse to other forms of violence, and she often says that "animal cruelty can be the beginning of a much larger problem." How we treat the most vulnerable reflects the kind of society we build, she says, a point she also makes in her TED Student Talk.

“I'm not trying to save every animal by myself. I'm trying to raise a generation that won't ignore them.”

Aunnaire Megan C. Uyao

Her answer starts earlier than the shelter. It starts in the classroom.

Likha's Cradle is the youth action movement she founded at 15 years old. Its CARE Program brings animal welfare education to schools and barangays through workshops that encourage students to use their talents, skills and interests for animals. The programme has partnered with Victorious Homeschool, and she says the team is "ready to scale it to other schools."

Under Likha's Cradle she has also led a field trip to an animal sanctuary, a football-for-a-cause fundraiser, a code camp where young people built tech solutions for animal welfare, a fundraising concert, and a global competition encouraging solutions for SDGs 13, 14 and 15.

"And now, I've been building on the CARE Program, bringing it to classrooms and, very soon, barangays," she says. The goal, as she puts it, is to build a generation that chooses compassion. "Because we believe that empathy is one of the most scalable solutions we have."