CreatureKind Fellows 2021-2022

CreatureKind Fellows

The CreatureKind Fellowship Program helps participants develop leadership skills and deepen their theological understanding of Christianity and farmed animals. Each year, we receive applications from all over the globe. After facilitating a rigorous interview process, we have selected seven fellows for the 2021-2022 CreatureKind Fellowship cohort. The fellows are from Zimbabwe, Brasil, Canada, and the United States. Their faith traditions include the Catholic, Presbyterian, Seventh Day Adventist, Church of Christ, and non-denominational denominations.

As a cohort, fellows consider the ways that farmed animal issues intersect with other faith and theological concerns, including: environmental racism, eco-womanism, decolonial/decolonized Christianity and theology, disability and animal liberation, anti-speciesism, and climate change. In their learning materials, we center and lift the voices of Black, Brown, and Indigenous People of Color who are on the frontlines of food and creation justice, while being mindful of CreatureKind’s mission to raise awareness, change faith-community food practices, and strengthen Christian animal advocates.

We are so excited for what this year will bring!

 

Meet the 2021-2022 CreatureKind Fellows

 

Linda (she/her/hers) is an animal lover advocating for the welfare of animals in Lupane, Zimbabwe. She is the founder of Humane Africa Trust, a non-profit organization with the mission of improving welfare for all animals. Her love for animals and her Christian background make her want to see human and non-human animals co-existing perfectly as God’s creation. She hopes the CreatureKind Fellowship will help her in fulfilling those desires.

Linda is a devout member of the Seventh Day Adventist church and holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Local Governance Studies. She lives with her three human kids and four non-human kids (dogs, Fender & Copper; and cats, Kiratile & Lerato).

  

Sydney (she/her/hers) is Canadian. She grew up in rural Ontario situated on the territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabek, surrounded by friendly neighbours, abundant farmland, and winter wildlife.

Sydney is a recent University of Toronto seminary graduate. As a CreatureKind Fellow, Sydney will focus on centering the education, advocacy, and creativity of children through the development of a CreatureKind course for children. Sydney is looking forward to deeper engagement in the history and future of the Church’s relationship to the welfare of farmed animals.

  

Bianca (she/her/hers) was born in southern Brazil (Paraná state). She is one of the founders of the Projeto Redomas, a digital activism organization that works against misogyny, racism, and LGBTQ+phobia within Christian spaces, especially evangelical, through content such as podcasts, texts, Bible studies, and booklets. She has a degree in graphic design and a master’s degree in design from the Federal University of Paraná, with a focus on gender, philosophy, and visuality. Despite always loving animals, when she discovered the cruel reality of farmed animals and food insecurity in Brazil, a country of great beauty and environmental diversity, she decided to go vegan and start talking about the subject, which is not well known among Christians in the country. The daughter of an evangelical home, she is learning to reread life and faith with her own alphabet of letters found in the midst of crises, daydreams, intuitions, discoveries, tears and, “why not?” laughter.

  

Jordan Humphrey is a student at Yale Divinity School. He grew up in North Carolina with two potbellied pigs and a backyard of forest. In the past decade, he has worked with high school and college students—both in the classroom and beyond—teaching literature in downtown Manhattan, helping to start a therapeutic boarding school in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and leading wilderness trips through the Utah desert. In his free time, he volunteers with animal sanctuaries and small farms, and this upcoming year, he hopes to help usher in a small flock of hens to his school’s Divinity Farm.

   

Andrea Krudy (she/her/hers) is a recent graduate of Calvin University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Health and Conservation. During her undergrad program, Andrea discovered her love for sustainable agriculture and realized industry holds great potential for furthering human and animal rights, and planetary health. Growing up on a hobby farm in northern Michigan, Andrea struggled seeing beloved pets end up on the table as food. She went vegan in 2016 and dreams of running an integrated agroecosystem with a farmed animal sanctuary where the compassion of Christ can be extended to non-human animals. Through her project, she hopes to delve deeper into the systems of animal agriculture, as well as improve dialogue about eating according to one’s ethics. Andrea enjoys rock-climbing, water sports, soccer, sketching, reading, and running in her free time.

  

Camila Mantovani (she/her/hers) is a Brazilian woman, born in Rio de Janeiro and currently residing in Brasilia-DF. She is bisexual, eco-socialist, vegan, evangelical, and is a member of the Baptist Church of the Way. She worked for many years as a teacher. Now, as a political articulator, campaigner, and builder of different evangelical movements, she advocates in defense of human rights and for the liberation of women, LGBTIQIA+ people, and non-human animals. She is currently the coordinator of the Coalition of Evangelicals for the Climate, which works to raise awareness and mobilize churches about the Christian ethical duty to live in harmony with all creation. She believes in standing up as children of God for the protection of forests, seas, rivers, and native peoples. Camila takes care of three beautiful cats named Purpurina, Esther, and Asherah. She is a lover of music, especially Brazilian Funk and Pagode, and she believes that in the Kingdom of God, there is equality and freedom between all created beings.

  

Jayda (she/her/hers) is an energetic, glittery-eyed, resilient dreamer. As an advocate for the freedom of all creatures, Jayda enjoys a rich plant-based lifestyle and encourages others to grow sacramentally aware of Creation. She is a wild soul, deeply connected to earth and her mournful cries, she hopes to rekindle a justice-oriented relationship between all creatures. After focusing on sustainability at Pepperdine University, Jayda’s God-given dream is to travel in a solar electric van and gain farming experience from climate smart farms, ultimately opening her own organic regenerative farm sanctuary and vegan restaurant. Jayda is almost always outside, smiling, and making friendships with every person she meets. Remind her to tell you about her rollerblading skateparks adventures, the time she did trapeze, played football as a JV running back, and played an 18th-century British woman for a theatre company in the mountains.