Elissa is a Canadian filmmaker, artist, ecofeminist, and NGO founder (Caleb’s Hope and Move Together Foundation). As a filmmaker and producer, she believes working with talent globally creates engaging, diverse, thought-provoking work with a unique point of view. After her own blunders in well-intentioned foreign aid, she is an advocate for challenging colonial narratives and tired aid models in African nations. A believer in life-long learning and personal expansion, Elissa is nearing her final year of law school; her specialty focusing on international law and how it relates to human rights, women’s rights, environmental law and animal law. She practices Earth-based spirituality and is a student of Buddhism and yogic traditions; as such she is devoted to the ten living principles of yoga and a bodhicitta path. As an ecofeminist, she rejects speciesism. Her passion for non-human animal welfare led to becoming a force-free, non-violence based CPDT and canine behavioral specialist which allows her to go further in her work rescuing behavioral special needs dogs at home and helping grassroots organization in volatile regions that are equally devoted to animal advocacy, rescue, and rehabilitation.
