Elissa Sursara's Charity Work

Charity biography

“I’m absolutely in love with the world,” says the beauty and the brains that is the Ivy League accepted intelligence and theatrical talent of actress Elissa Sursara. “The worst thing a person can do is disrespect the environment and the responsibilities we have as people to protect the more vulnerable.”

Not often does a talent like Elissa “Saucy” Sursara find the time to give back, but the ocean-eyed actress says “it’s the single most important thing a human being can do, whether it’s donating five dollars to a charity or simply educating themselves about an issue. Being aware is foremost, if you don’t know, you won’t act and if you don’t act, the rest of us are just fighting a losing battle.”

And there is a lot the Australian born actress of first generation Brazilian and Russian immigrant parents cares about.

Born into a Sydney beach community when her Brazilian father and pregnant Russian mother fled to Australia to escape a life of poverty in her families Brazilian home-town of Ipanema, Elissa Sursara is more than just a perfect mixture of ethnicities and aesthetics – she’s intelligent (international acceptance to YALE, to be exact) and she has a heart that gets put to good use.

Sharing a strong friendship with the late Steve Irwin and daughter Bindi Irwin, and favoring animal welfare charities as well as environmental and earth watch organizations, “mini-megan” (referring to supermodel Megan Gale) works predominantly with World Society for the Protection of Animals, Greenpeace and PETA as well as lending her voice to the Great Ape Project and Save The Whales.

Donating her energy and name to Steve Irwin’s Wildlife Warriors Worldwide and a string of animal shelter associations, Sursara aims to push forward the implement stronger animal welfare regulations and bring a stop to the international exploitations associated with all kinds of human and animal relationships.

Though her activist resume extends across a variety of environmental causes, Sursara predominantly backs PETA’s somewhat controversial Anti-Fur campaign. Joining the likes of Tommy Lee, Charlize Theron, Pamela Anderson, Kate Ford and pop-star PINK (Aleesha Moore), Sursara emphasizes the ignorance of ‘pro-fur’ parties within the fashion industry, saying, “You can justify it however you like, it’s still sadistic and it’s still murder,” and urges people to re-think the comfort they have found in the assurance fur-farms have provided when boasting they are regulated. “Fur farms are self-regulated, which means they do not comply with federal law to protect the rights and welfare of the animals housed at their farms. The term regulated is thrown around in an attempt to convince people that the animals are treated like regular house-hold pets, with love, affection, room to move and some kind of social interaction, whether it be with humans or a fellow animal. The reality is that the animals are cramped in confined, often dirty enclosures, are completely ignored and do not receive veterinarian attention. Fur-farmers are not employed to play with chinchilla, they are employed to kill them.”

Sursara’s other charitable donations include the ONE Campaign, YouthAIDS and promoting “one love” through GLAAD, organizations supported by her fellow Hollywood hot-shot Leonardo DiCaprio who said of Sursara, “She’s beautiful, talented and what’s greater is that she is intelligent. She fights for what’s right and I admire it.”

“People are capable of so much more,” says the actress. “We need to look out for those that don’t have the ability to look out for themselves.”

“Karma,” says the actress say to relentless fur wearers, “you’ll probably come back as a Mink.”

Charities supported

Elissa Sursara supports the following charities: