Meet our Team

Home Meet Our Team

Juliana Castañeda Turner

Co-founder & Executive Director

Juliana co-founded the sanctuary in 2006, from that moment on, she has given her life to saving animals. Vegetarian since she was 5 and vegan from 2006, and a lifelong activist. Juliana is also the regional coordinator for Food for Life Global, the world’s largest vegan food relief.

Ekala Isvara Das

Co-founder & Manager

Ekala cofounded the sanctuary, put aside his career as an artist to dedicate his life to saving animals. He currently oversees the well-being of all the animals. Recently, he has started creating artwork of the animals to help support the sanctuary.

Paul Rodney Turner

Animal Caretaker and Chef

Paul cares for the larger animals on the sanctuary and is also the in-house vegan chef. He is the founder and director of Food for Life Global, the world’s largest vegan food relief, a social entrepreneur, and founder of the feedOM Kindness Ecosystem. He is a 10-year veteran of the World Bank, a former monk and author of 5 books.

Jorden Meade Ruggles

Secretary

Jordie is a long-time animal activists and graphic designer who lives in Seattle. She began doing pro-bono graphic design for JAS in 2016 and soon after took over the role of charity president for 3 years. Jordie has also helped us bring 8 dogs to the US to their forever homes!

Amelia

International Volunteer Recruiter

Amelia is an animal-loving environmentalist from Canada. Since going vegan in 2014 she has dedicated all her free time to saving animals. She has traveled around the world volunteering for Sea Shepherd, Elephant Nature Park, Esther the wonder pig and JAS. She is so inspired by Juliana’s work and is thrilled to be part of the team.

Camilo Arias

Assistant to Director

Camilo is a professional musician, who also has a great love for literature; this interest in writing, added to his love for animals, led him to become involved with Juliana’s sanctuary.
For him, working in this wonderful place means giving a greater meaning to life, since he thinks that giving his skills for a just cause is something that rejoices anyone. Not everyone has the opportunity to do something worthwhile every day, and for Camilo, it means getting up every day to fight for the other species that live with us.
His plans for the future involve creating music and art that helps more people become aware of the importance of animal liberation and continue supporting the Sanctuary in every possible way.

Carolina Ruiz

National Volunteer Coordinator

Vegan since 2017, Carolina or Helena Fox as she is known for her artistic work is a passionate animal rights advocate, a lionheart. She’s a well known cruelty free & vegan makeup artist in Colombia, she has been investigating cruelty free beauty and lifestyle for about 5 years now. She’s been leading our national volunteer group since 2018 who clean, fix and maintain all the areas of the animals once a month.
She is also mother of one of our sanctuary habitants: our calf Simón David, which she rescued with her friends. She says working at the sanctuary is an honor and will be forever grateful to be able to be part of this family. We are her favorite place in the world.

Nicholas Cunningham

CPA

Licensed Certified Public Accountant and Chartered Financial Consultant® with experience in nonprofit management, financial reporting and analysis, accounting and auditing. Passionate about personal financial planning, investing, and budgeting.