Soraida Salwala opened the World’s First Asian Elephant Hospital in Lampang, Thailand in 1993 to treat elephants that are ill or injured as a result of work, abuse or neglect. To date, she and her staff have treated over 3,000 elephants for everything from eye infections to knife wounds, gunshot wounds, broken bones, drug addictions and building prosthetic limbs for the survivors of landmine accidents.

When Soraida Salwala was a young girl, she and her father happened upon an elephant that had been hit by a car. She wanted to take "Uncle Elephant" to the hospital; when her father informed her that there was no hospital for elephants, she was heartbroken. In 1993, Soraida realized a lifelong dream to create a hospital for elephants. The Friends of the Asian Elephant Hospital in Lampang, Thailand, is the first of its kind in the world.