#choosesocial.ph

Our first day in Philippines began with a home cooked meal of fish and crab. Jérôme (my partner of five years) and I left our home in Toronto and travelled for 24 hours straight to land in my parent’s hometown in Bulacan, Malolos (about two hours north of Manila). I immediately gave into my jet lag and went to bed. Jérôme, the more resolute of us two, stayed awake and ended up at my uncle’s next door where five of my Titos (uncles) were drinking. They greeted him warmly to their Man Table, handed him a San Miguel Light, and insisted he help himself to the ‘pulutan’ (finger foods) on the table. Immediately, they involved him in their conversation.

“So Jérôme, do you have a second girl yet?” My uncle asked with a sly smile.

The rest of my uncles eagerly awaited Jérôme’s response (no). They were as hungry as paparazzi for a juicy story and disappointed at the outcome. And that’s it. Within five minutes, they made it very clear what kind of men they were.

Men and Women

When you step into a family party in the Philippines, you’ll catch yourself in the middle of one grand fiesta. You’ll see children of all ages screaming and running about, their exasperated mothers trailing behind them while someone belts out a karaoke ballad in the background. You’ll also see the women running the show, taking care of the food and the guests and the cleaning, while the men sit and drink at a table separate from the rest of the party. In this corner, crude jokes and beer are allowed (and women and children, implicitly, are not).

When Jérôme returned and told me what they asked, my god, I was so angry I couldn’t see straight. How dare they? I’m their niece, aren’t I? After all, Jérôme was only here in Philippines because of me, isn’t he? I wondered: if he was dating one of their daughters, would they still have asked him and hoped he said yes? Do they not give a shit at all about women?

I told my mother what they said, expecting her to be enraged and ready to fight. But my mother just shook her head with disapproval. ‘Just ignore them,’ she said. ‘There’s no point making yourself angry over talk like that.’

But I was angry. When I first began writing this blog post (weeks ago), I wrote it with a vengeance. I was going to talk about the shortcomings of Filipino men and their lack of respect for women. I was going to criticize the obsession with class and stature in Filipino society – how white and male mean first class, and everyone else falls into descending levels of worth (if you happen to be dark skinned and a woman, sorry, you’re out of luck). I was going to disclose my disappointment in my own family and my outrage on behalf of all women.

  Tony Meloto, founder of Gawad Kalinga, at the Manila Impact Hub speaking about the need to involve men in development.

  In short, I was hurt and angry and taking it all far too personally.

Then I attended a fortuitous event in Manila at the Impact Hub in Makati. Tony Meloto, the founder of Gawad Kalinga, was speaking about his journey into social entrepreneurship and how his organization is lifting Filipinos out of poverty. He dreams of a country where people are proud to be Filipino and wealth does not leave people behind. Everyone (rich and poor, men and women) must be involved in building this dream.

Traditional models of development

When we usually talk about development and alleviating poverty, the conversation always revolves around women (and for good reason). Poverty often has a female face and research shows that if you can provide a woman with a steady income, the likelihood her children will receive post-secondary education increases significantly. There’s a reason why the majority of our community partners on Cambio Market work solely with communities of women to provide employment and education.

But where do men fit into development? Should we just accept that men will be men and say “to the hell with them – we women will pave our own way!”? The problem with this way of thinking is that it’s wrong. The men at the bottom of the pyramid are the ones who fall victim to (and also contribute to) substance abuse, gang violence and petty crime. Many of them also become abusive at home, or abandon their wives and children. According to Tony Meloto, as long as we continue to ignore the role of men in poverty and development, they will become our liabilities when they should be our assets. These men are as much symptoms of the problems in society as they are causes, and we must help them be part of the solution instead of the ongoing problem. A man who doesn’t respect himself will never respect a woman.

  Cambio Market’s line of greeting cards made by women escaping sex trafficking in the Philippines.

  A New Approach At Cambio Market

That’s when I realized that my anger was directed at the wrong people. Yes, I should be angry. Yes, I should be hurt. Yes, I should take it personally and be ready to fight – but poverty isn’t black and white. Sometimes the aggressor needs as much help as the victim.

In my work with Cambio Market, we already work with amazing partners on the ground like Olivia & Diego and Good Paper/The Paper Project. They employ low-income Filipina women (many of whom were former victims of sex trafficking) to produce every item and provide them steady income to help their families. We’re excited to continue with these projects, but we also acknowledge that we should be engaged with projects that also empower men and help them provide for their families. We believe in Tony Meloto’s dream of a country where no one is left behind – rich or poor, man or woman.

Change

I’m still hurt but I’m no longer angry like I used to be. Time and a little reflection usually put things into perspective. One night during our trip, my aunts and uncles threw my parents a ‘despedida’ (goodbye party) to celebrate their return to Canada. For the first time, I joined Jérôme and my uncles at their Man Table. This triggered my aunt (who I’m sure was concerned and wanted to keep an eye on me) to sit down with us also. As more people arrived and saw women at the table, more of my aunts joined. Some of them shared a drink, others just shared in the company.

But that night, I saw something I’ve never seen before. I saw my aunts and uncles and cousins all sitting at the same table, laughing and singing and happy. I watched them with a feeling of lightness as they got up from the table, tipsy from drinking and lightheaded with happiness, and began dancing with each other in the middle of our backyard – everyone wondering why they haven’t been doing this all along.

Change may come sooner than we think.

—

Gelaine Santiago: Gelaine, a Filipino-Canadian, is co-founder of ChooseSocial.PH – the go-to resource to learn about the social enterprise scene in the Philippines. She is also co-founder of the social enterprise startup Cambio Market – an online shop for handcrafted, ethical products that give back. She’s pretty nerdy and loves to talk about all things social enterprises, entrepreneurship, travel, start-ups, and food (of course).

Jérôme and I founded Cambio Market with a goal: do business differently. We want our business to be transparent, to employ 100% ethical business practices, and to always put people first above everything – this means prioritizing our customers, our partners, our future employees, and even our personal wellbeing over our personal bank accounts. In order to run a business ethically, however, we need to lead ethical lives – but what does it mean to live ethically, and how?

These are precisely the kind of questions Jérôme and I put out there for our Cambio community to answer. We held a Facebook giveaway several weeks ago and asked two questions: (1) What does living ethically mean to you? and (2) How do you make the world a better place? The responses we received were wonderfully insightful and taught us a few things about this business of changing the world.

We held a giveaway and asked people on Facebook to tell us what ethical living means to them and how they’re making the world a better place.

Question #1: What does living ethically mean to you?

For many people, the term “ethical living” is reserved for hard-core extremists. You may think of hippies from the ’70s (or their modern-day equivalents) living in the woods and cut off from civilization, fashioning clothes from sticks and leaves. The reality is most of us can’t (and don’t want to) live like this, and we don’t have to. Leading an ethical lifestyle doesn’t mean we have to turn our whole lives upside down and give up on society.

When we put the question out there for our community to answer, we received responses like “living outside of myself”, “being aware of my impact”, or “making environmentally conscious decisions.”

Dani, a giveaway participant and founder of Canadian social enterprise Tribe of Lambs, shared:

“For me living ethically is making conscious choices on what we wear, what we eat, what we put on our skin, and what we put in our homes. Those choices (for me) need to have minimum impact on the environment and maximize the difference it makes for the people who makes the items – small business owners, local entrepreneurs etc. We vote with our dollars everyday, and I like voting for the ethical choices everyday…”

Ultimately, living ethically means something different to each of us, but the key is this: it always starts with you. It starts first with awareness, and then acceptance: First, awareness that your actions do have an impact (for good or bad) and second, acceptance that you must do something about it. But what can you do?

Lucie, one of our giveaway winners, shares her thoughts on what it means to live ethically and how it has impacted her personally.

Question #2: How do you make the world a better place?

There’s another misconception that changing the world entails something grandiose – you need to fly across the world to volunteer in remote villages or war-torn countries, or work for prominent agencies like the UN, Amnesty International or Green Peace. It’s pretty amazing if you are doing or have done this, but what about the rest of us? What about Krysania, for example, who is working to improve her knowledge of emergencies and disaster preparedness so she can be ready to help others if and when a crisis occurs? Or people like Bobbi who plan canoe trips for youth in the Peel Watershed in Ontario, which needs protection from industry? There are also wonderfully kind people like Tara who believe in small acts of kindness because “sometimes, it is the simple things that can make a difference.” Lucie, one of our giveaway winners, makes the world a better place by simply “allowing people to be who they are.” Truth is, we each change the world in some way – our impact may not span across continents (or maybe it does), but we each unknowingly change someone’s world simply by existing, and that means a great deal.

  Krishia, our second giveaway winner, tells us about how she strives to make the world a better place through actions both big and small.

Whatever your way of giving back and creating impact, start small and start with you. Many of us feel small, overwhelmed, intimidated, or afraid – but we must “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has” (Margaret Mead). Living ethically is a choice, making an impact is a choice, and we make that choice everyday with every. single. decision we take.

So what about you? Are you also passionate about ethical living, responsible business, and giving back? Visit us at www.cambio.market to learn how we’re helping to develop the next generation of conscious consumers. Together, we can have a real and meaningful impact.

—

Gelaine Santiago: Gelaine, a Filipino-Canadian, is co-founder of ChooseSocial.PH – the go-to resource to learn about the social enterprise scene in the Philippines. She is also co-founder of the social enterprise startup Cambio Market – an online shop for handcrafted, ethical products that give back. She’s pretty nerdy and loves to talk about all things social enterprises, entrepreneurship, travel, start-ups, and food (of course).

It’s been almost a year since Jérôme and I first launched ChooseSocial.PH. Time flies, and neither of us could have imagined where our journey would take us. Since we launched our online directory of social enterprises in the Philippines, we’ve grown it from zero to more than 80 social enterprises, were speakers at the NextDayBetter event in Toronto earlier this year, and were featured on Rappler, one of the biggest publications in the Philippines. We both also quit our day jobs to work on our latest venture (but more on that in a bit!). Life really is full of surprises.

It’s also full of opportunities. When we initially launched ChooseSocial.PH, it was just a passion project we worked on for fun. When people began asking us where they could buy these social enterprise products in North America, we had our aha! moment. Why stop at awareness and education? What if we could tangibly help these social enterprises scale their impact and become financially sustainable? What if we could get their products in front of more people? Imagine the impact that could have.

  Jérôme and I were invited to speak at the NextDayBetter in Toronto earlier this year.

Enter Cambio Market, Jérôme and mine’s latest venture. We help grow socially responsible businesses in the Philippines and around the world by helping them reach a wider market. Every product in our store is handcrafted, ethically sourced, and linked to a social cause. Currently we have community partners in North America like Purpose Jewelry (jewelry handcrafted by victims of modern-day slavery rescued in India and California) and Ezzy Lynn (handmade hair accessories that help species at risk). We also support Filipino social enterprises like the benevolent Olivia & Diego (eco-ethical and sustainable jewelry made from upcycled materials) and The Paper Project (handcrafted greeting cards made by survivors of sex trafficking). Being able to work with and support our community partners is so humbling and exciting, but we also love the part where we can connect people like you to causes you genuinely care about.

That’s actually why we started ChooseSocial.PH in the first place. We wanted to inspire people to choose social – to choose to live consciously, support impactful organizations, and enact social change in ways both big and small. Cambio Market was a natural next step for us to take our mission further.

Cambio is the Spanish word for change. We want to change communities (and individuals) for the better. We want to change how traditional businesses operate, how people perceive “giving back” and living ethically, how people shop and where they shop. That’s why every single purchase you make at Cambio Market creates positive change: that upcycled necklace you just bought means less waste in the landfill and fair wages for the artisans who made it, the birthday card you gave your friend is helping a former victim of sex trafficking find dignified work to support her family, and the earrings you’re wearing help a former child slave get a quality education. Your choices, your actions, and your impact – Jérôme and I are just here to provide the means to do it.

So what’s coming next? We have a lot of work to do when it comes to raising awareness. We need to grow our revenue in order to raise our ability to support our existing partners and our capacity to take on new ones. The two of us are taking an extended trip to the Philippines this winter to meet with suppliers in person and foster stronger connections with the amazing social entrepreneurs we’ve met (online) this past year. With all this, ChooseSocial.PH will have to take a backseat for now as we focus on growing Cambio Market, but we’ll still be around and will continue growing our directory (fingers crossed!).

Just like we could never have imagined we would be here a year ago, neither of us have a clue where any of this will be in the next year (or even in the next few months). But the only thing we do know with certainty is that change is afoot, and to us, that’s a wonderful thing.

Are you also passionate about ethical living, sustainable fashion, and giving back? Pay us a visit at www.cambio.market and help us spread the word. Together, we can have a real and meaningful impact.

—

Gelaine Santiago: Gelaine, a Filipino-Canadian, is co-founder of ChooseSocial.PH – the go-to resource to learn about the social enterprise scene in the Philippines. She is also co-founder of the social enterprise startup Cambio Market – an online shop for handcrafted, ethical products that give back. She’s pretty nerdy and loves to talk about all things social enterprises, entrepreneurship, travel, start-ups, and food (of course).

—

About NextDayBetter | NextDayBetter is a speaker and food series for diaspora communities. Its global events in nine cities celebrate the stories of changemakers from untapped global migrant communities and call them to action. It believes that diasporas like the Filipino Asian Pacific Islander global communities are hubs and inspirations for world changing ideas. Learn more at nextdaybetter.com.

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When we began working on ChooseSocial.PH, we wanted to highlight the great work and community impact of social enterprises in the Philippines. But really, which organizations inspired us to embark on this journey? And why Philippines? Gelaine and I are located in Toronto and Gelaine, who was born in the Philippines, hasn’t always felt like an insider in the Filipino community. For myself, I’m not even Filipino. I was born and raised in Québec speaking French as my first language, and then moved to Toronto five years ago. What was so special about social enterprises in the Philippines that appealed to us so much?

Gelaine and I met as volunteers for the non-profit student organization called AIESEC. While volunteering, we both discovered the alluring and ambitious world of social enterprises – the idea that businesses and business skills could be forces for social good. We always knew our passions lay with social enterprises, but how this applied to the Philippines didn’t occur to us. That is, until we discovered the Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm, an incubator of social enterprises and a Filipino success that inspires many across the world. This immediately caught our eye and thus began our budding passion for Filipino social enterprises.

The Enchanted Farm was created by Gawad Kalinga, a Filipino non-profit with the mission of ending poverty for 5 million Filipino families by 2024. The Enchanted Farm itself was founded as a center of innovation in order to foster a new generation of innovative social enterprises in the Philippines. The goal is an ambitious one – to create new Filipino brands that will manufacture Filipino products for the Filipino market. Which is needed in a country where a lot of products, including food products (chocolate, dairy & coffee) that could be farmed locally, are imported.

Because the Enchanted Farm itself is on farmland, many of those products are food products. And because they are all social enterprises, they facilitate local capacity building by providing employment, job training and education to beneficiaries of Gawad Kalinga (typically low-income) communities, while also reinvesting their profits into social programs to help alleviate poverty. By hosting more than 20 social enterprises under the same roof, this hub of social entrepreneurship fosters collaboration, networking, and knowledge sharing amongst the social enterprises, while providing a unique marketplace (Enchanted Farm Cafe) to showcase their work. The innovation coming out of this high concentration of social enterprises has led many to call the Enchanted Farm the “Silicon Valey of social enterprises”.

Since I am myself an IT Professional with experience consulting for various companies big and small, I love learning about new startups and the development of new technologies, I can also witness and understand how new companies can benefit from an environment of collaboration and growth similar to the Silicon Valley. At the Enchanted Farm, entrepreneurs can constantly network and share their learnings and expertise. Because of this unique and inspiring environment, the Enchanted Farm attracts people from all walks of life – whether they want to found a social enterprise, volunteer, or are working professionals who wish to pivot from a career in corporate to the social enterprise or social impact world.

For example, Xilca Alvarez left her work as a lawyer to work at the Enchanted Farm and eventually to join Bayani Brew, a social enterprise that creates drinks from local & indigenous ingredients cultivated at the Enchanted Farm. Because of the Farm’s reputation as a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship, it now attracts lots of funding opportunities from other organizations that can help to scale those social enterprises. For me, that was a personal realization. The Enchanted Farm taught me that the Silicon Valley model of IT innovation could be applied to the world of social good and impact, and how my two passions for technology and social enterprises could intersect. I decided then that I wanted to share this unique Filipino social enterprise scene with the world.

Xilca Alvarez, Ron Dizon, and Shanon Khadka from Bayani Brew

  We often hear through NextDayBetter of the successes and accomplishments of Filipino diaspora communities across the world. These successes not only inspire the Filipino diaspora but everyone in the community, both Filipinos and non-Filipinos alike. The Enchanted Farm also attracts this kind of attention. The difference is, however, they are located in the Philippines and people actually travel large distances to learn from this unique place. For example, many European students volunteer at the Farm for months at a time and many business visitors come to learn from the farm’s operation for a few days. This is how people at the Enchanted Farm have begun to refer to themselves as the “’Disneyland’ for social tourism”.

While many people come to learn, Fabien Courteille from France, decided to stay after volunteering and launched his own social enterprise at the Farm. The social enterprise is called Plush and Play, and sells children’s toys. Regardless of their origin, the farm shows that people from across the world can come in, take part and be integrated into the community, and work alongside Filipinos to help resolve one of the Philippine’s major social problems: poverty. For a non-Filipino like me, I often see the pitfalls of foreigners going to another country to bring their own solutions to what they consider are the most important problem. What I love about the Enchanted Farm is that it’s a concept entirely created for the Philippines, by Filipinos and adapted to the local Filipino needs and realities, while they still are welcoming help from everyone. Knowing that different cultures can come together to innovate and work towards a single social goal in the Philippines, knowing that I could be one of those persons without feeling out of place, what else could be more inspiring?

Our mission at ChooseSocial.PH is to bring social enterprises into the mainstream and the Enchanted Farm is great at helping us with this goal. For anyone visiting the Philippines and staying around Manila, the Enchanted Farm is a must-see. Located in Angat, Bulacan, it is a few hours drive from Manila. Not only is it possible to visit it, but they actually have various visitor packages to help you learn about the social enterprises and offer accommodations. Gelaine and I still haven’t had the chance to visit the Enchanted Farm or any of the social enterprises we feature on ChooseSocial.PH. However, this is something we want to remedy as we plan to travel to the Philippines in December this year. In case we needed any more signs of the importance of social enterprises into our lives, we even realized that Gelaine’s birthplace in Bulacan is less than one hour out from the Enchanted Farm. Really, there’s no good reason for us to miss this amazing place!

Perhaps this won’t be possible for you to visit and learn from the Enchanted Farm in the immediate future. So, what can you do? Learn and apply the principles of collaboration and innovation from the Enchanted Farm and see if there is another group in your city you can join which may help you build the next big thing!

Not sure where to start? Look at your local NextDayBetter chapter! – Jérôme Gagnon-Voyer

  Photo Credits: Destination Changemakers

About NextDayBetter | NextDayBetter is a speaker and food series for diaspora communities. Its global events in nine cities celebrate the stories of changemakers from untapped global migrant communities and call them to action. It believes that diasporas like the Filipino Asian Pacific Islander global communities are hubs and inspirations for world changing ideas. Learn more at nextdaybetter.com.

Connect with the NextDayBetter global community:

Website: www.nextdaybetter.com

Facebook: facebook.com/nextdaybetter

Twitter: @NextDayBetter

Instagram: NextDayBetter

  This article was originally published on the ChooseSocial.PH Blog.

Last week, Jérôme and I were invited to speak at the NextDayBetter + TO event. For those of you who don’t know, NextDayBetter (or NDB for short) is a global food and speaker series which aims to empower diaspora communities through storytelling and culture (they’re awesome! Check ’em out). We had attended the same event last year, which you could say was the start of us being introduced to the Filipino community in Toronto.

When we were first approached by the NDB+TO team to speak, Jérôme and my first reactions were along the lines of, “There really must be some mistake. I think you want someone more legit.” This isn’t about humility. This was us not being able to comprehend how our story  could be interesting or relevant or on par with the likes of Caroline Mangosing and Filipino comic book artist Francis Manapul who spoke last year. I mean, come on, Francis has his own Wikipedia page (!!!). In contrast, Jérôme and I are just two random people who started a website out of our own apartment. We work full-time in the corporate world, make dinner at home like everyone else, and then continue working into the night on our laptops. How could that be guest speaker worthy? 

In my previous blog post for NextDayBetter, I talk about what it’s like to run a website on Filipino social entrepreneurship despite being something of a Filipino “outsider” myself. Despite this already being out in the open, part of me felt embarrassed and afraid to be so vulnerable on a stage in front of over 150 people.

But that’s what we did. We went on stage. We spoke about how surprised we were to be invited to speak. How we felt out of place because we weren’t “typical Filipinos” (Jérôme, after all, isn’t even Filipino). I spoke about how, despite me losing touch with my roots at such a young age, that didn’t stop me from feeling proud to be Filipina, that I was here to re-connect and share the story of ChooseSocial.PH, share the story of social entrepreneurs in the Philippines, and ultimately, share our story of me and Jérôme.

After our talk, several people came up to us afterward. They told us how they loved our presentation and how it resonated with them. And then they started telling us their stories. One woman told us about her research on Filipino food history and how she’s always dreamed of sharing the story of the Philippines through food. Someone else told us about her involvement with Gawad Kalinga and how she is passionate about expanding their efforts in Canada.

That’s when I had a realization. The beauty of platforms such as NextDayBetter isn’t that they find the best and brightest people to speak and share their story. It’s that they allow anyone to be a storyteller, to be an expert, to be a change maker. By sharing our modest and perhaps even ordinary story of ChooseSocial.PH, we unconsciously allowed others around us to feel liberated and empowered to reciprocate and share their own. The people are the stories. NextDayBetter is just the platform.

As I reflect on that night, I think about the people we met. I think of the genetics researcher who is learning about Filipino genes and how looking at them through a microscope can tell you our history of colonization, diversification, and deviation from our indigenous roots. Or the young Filipino who works at CAMH and is committed to sharing stories of people suffering from mental health and the importance of bringing those stories to light. Or about the many Filipinos I met who have come looking to re-connect and re-discover their Filipino roots.

All of those stories are worthy and deserve to be shared on stage. What’s funny though is that when I suggested they should be up on the stage, the thought had never previously occurred to them. Expressions of “Really? Oh, I don’t know about that…” or “Huh. Maybe I should…”

What I learned more than anything that night is the beauty and power of storytelling. And more importantly, of vulnerability. By being open and about our fears and hopes and dreams, we unconsciously allow others to do the same.

In a sense, our stories are all the same, and yet so distinctly unique. That’s the beauty of it. – Gelaine Santiago

  Photo Credits: Bo Fajardo

About NextDayBetter | NextDayBetter is a speaker and food series for diaspora communities. Its global events in nine cities celebrate the stories of changemakers from untapped global migrant communities and call them to action. It believes that diasporas like the Filipino Asian Pacific Islander global communities are hubs and inspirations for world changing ideas. Learn more at nextdaybetter.com.

Connect with the NextDayBetter global community:

Website: www.nextdaybetter.com

Facebook: facebook.com/nextdaybetter

Twitter: @NextDayBetter

Instagram: NextDayBetter

ChooseSocial.PH co-founders, Gelaine Santiago and Jérôme Gagnon-Voyer, are big believers that social enterprises are the way to building a society where everyone profits. They built their crowdsourced social directory to support and build awareness about organizations that are changing the business landscape in the Philippines – organizations that think like smart and savvy businesses in order to grow the bottom line: their social impact.

Get your tickets here to learn more about their passion project, ChooseSocial.PH, at NextDayBetter + Toronto on July 30, 2015!: ndbto2015.eventbrite.com

Read on to get to know more about Gelaine and Jérôme!

  Featured Speaker Q & A:

Names: Gelaine Santiago + Jérôme Gagnon-Voyer, @ChooseSocial

Trade: Social Entrepreneurs and Co-Founders of ChooseSocial.PH

If you had to choose one restaurant in Toronto to eat at tonight, where would it be and why? Gelaine: A little hole-in-the-wall place in Scarborough, serving a type of food I’ve never tried before. I love supporting local businesses and discovering new and unique foods and flavours. To me, food is a way to immerse yourself into any culture. You can learn and experience so much in a single meal.

Jérôme: I can always go for take-out wings at Wild Wings. After a long day at work, watching Netflix and eating chicken wings always seems like a good combo.

What makes Toronto unique? How do you feel about being a creative in Toronto? Gelaine: Toronto is unique because it’s a city that truly embraces diversity. I don’t mean diversity just in terms of culture – but diversity in terms of passions, interests, education, skill sets, and personalities. You can be an engineer, a writer AND a business person and there’s a community that will encourage you to be all of the above and really mix everything together. I love that. Toronto truly embraces diversity as a strength – not just in terms of our communities, but also diversity in our personal interests and skills.

Jérôme: The mix of culture in that city is something I haven’t experienced anywhere else among the 21 countries I’ve visited. This is not only about the variety of culture; it’s also how well they can interact together. It is not a rare occurrence to have multiple ethnicities and cultures represented among the same group of friends. This really helped my integration into the city as a French-Canadian.

This mix of people also helps creativity in Toronto. Regardless of my interest (technology, non-profits, language learning), there is a MeetUp group that exists in Toronto to meet people with common interests, this is truly inspiring.

What is your spirit animal? Gelaine: Elephant They may not be the most nimble or powerful animals, but they’re capable of so much more than meets the eye.

Jérôme: The panda. I wouldn’t say this animal represents me entirely, however, I like its calm and quiet spirit, which makes it an animal easy to love.

What is your favorite go-to karaoke song? Gelaine: Air Supply – “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All”

Jérôme: The Black Eyed Peas – “Where Is The Love?”

Complete this sentence: “I make the next day better by…” Gelaine: Contributing my skills however I can. I may not be the most talented, smartest, or inspirational person with the million-dollar idea, but I believe we all have a role to play in this world and I’m going to play mine, no matter how big or small the part.

Jérôme: Contributing my time daily to causes that I care about. For long hours or just for few minutes, I believe that dedication and perseverance eventually moves mountains.

  Meet Gelaine and Jérôme at NextDayBetter + Toronto! July 30, 2015 | 6PM – 9PM Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media & Education 918 Bathurst St.

Purchase tickets here: ndbto2015.eventbrite.com

Share on FB: http://on.fb.me/1Q1p94p

About NextDayBetter A Creative Speaker and Food Series For Diaspora Communities. Our events celebrate the stories of changemakers from untapped global communities and call them to action. We believe that diasporas like the Philippines global community are hubs and inspirations for world-changing ideas. Learn more: www.nextdaybetter.com

Connect with the NextDayBetter global community: Website: www.nextdaybetter.com Facebook: facebook.com/nextdaybetter Twitter: @NextDayBetter Instagram: NextDayBetter

I’m not your definition of a Filipina role model. I understand but don’t speak Tagalog. I was born in Philippines but couldn’t tell you much about life in the country. I grew up eating ‘adobo,” palabok,’ and ‘pancit,’ but only recently learned the difference between ‘lechon’ and ‘lechon kawali.’ I’ve lived most of my life in Canada where I was raised to believe that Philippine-made meant cheap, and “opportunity” was always paired with “abroad”.

So, it must be a surprise that here I am – co-founder of ChooseSocial.PH, an organization that aims to connect and educate people about social enterprises in the Philippines and the work of Filipino social entrepreneurs. It’s a surprise but an honour to be part of an organization that proudly showcases the work, impact, and innovations of Filipinos and what they are doing to make their communities even better.

For the many of you who don’t know, a social enterprise is a business that primarily exists in order to address a social or environmental cause. You might have immediately thought about Toms Shoes or even Ten Thousand Villages, some of the better-known social enterprises. But what about Kalibrr (named one of five filipino tech startups to watch in the Wall Street Journal)? Hapinoy (a social enterprise modernizing the traditional sari-sari store model to help female entrepreneurs)? Or The Enchanted Farm Café (a café in Quezon City selling gourmet and artisan foods made from 100% Philippine ingredients and sourced from local farms)? These are exactly the stories that we want to tell.

The concept for ChooseSocial.PH slowly began to form after Jérôme and I travelled to Philippines in December 2013. This was my first time back since moving to Canada when I was three years old. During our short two-week trip, Jérôme and I both fell in love with the country. I loved the warm heat on my skin even when it was pitch black outside and the heaviness that was always present in the air. I loved the open hospitality of strangers on the street who would invite Jérôme over for a beer, and seeing my father so proud to show us the home where we grew up in Bulacan. Despite all the things to love, however, you would have to be completely daft to be oblivious to the extreme poverty, inequality, and complex social and environmental issues prevalent within the country.

When we returned to Toronto, we heard of an event through Kapisanan, a Toronto-based Filipino arts and culture organization where Jérôme had been taking Tagalog classes back in 2013. The event was marketed with the intriguing headline “Batman, Foodies, Fashion + CrisisMaps” and we decided to attend. This was our introduction to the world of NextDayBetter and it was my first time being surrounded by so many people like me – second generation Filipinos who grew up in Canada. They were hugely idealistic, and I discovered a community of people who not only looked like me, but also shared my ambitions to create positive and impactful change in the world.

At the first NextDayBetter event in Toronto, I discovered a community of ambitious Filipino youth (and also plenty of delicious Filipino food).

We were inspired. Jérôme, with his insatiable appetite for knowledge, intensively began to research the Philippines. He occupied himself with learning about the tech and startup scene, social issues, and economy. He came across Gawad Kalinga, an extremely impressive Filipino organization founded by Tony Meloto committed to eradicating poverty in the Philippines. One of the key ways they aim to do this is through their Enchanted Farm, an incubator for Filipino social enterprises. From there, we were introduced to organizations such as GoldenducK, Gourmet Keso, Human Heart Nature, Rags2Riches, and engageSPARK. The range in size, mission, and product offerings was astounding, and the creativity with which many of these organizations tackle the country’s most complex social issues completely floored and humbled us.

Something we noticed early in our research was though many social enterprises were doing amazing work, learning about it was a huge challenge. Many of these organizations didn’t have websites or were impossible to find, and when we did find them, the messages were so convoluted that it was next to impossible to understand what they did. That’s where the idea for ChooseSocial.PH was truly born. We essentially created what we wanted for ourselves –  a go-to resource to learn about social enterprises in the Philippines that was visually appealing, up to date, and in touch with the younger generation of Filipinos.

We officially launched our website in November 2014 and have 73 organizations in our directory to date, with over 150 organizations waiting to be researched and added. We continue to make improvements to our site, and are focused on strengthening our relationships with social entrepreneurs and partner organizations. When I think of it, the two of us are a funny group – me, a Filipina still learning Tagalog; and Jérôme, a Québecois living in Toronto who learned English as a second language and knows more about the Philippines than I do. We are both members of our respective diaspora communities in our unique ways.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t have my doubts. I doubt whether the two of us are really knowledgeable or qualified to be involved in this type of work. I get anxious when I think about the future and what ChooseSocial.PH will become, if it will become anything. I get frustrated when my friends and own family don’t understand or show interest in what we’re doing. I wonder, more often than not, if I know what I’m doing and if those entrepreneurs we spend so much time researching and learning about ever wonder the same things.

Despite the doubts, I draw my inspiration from stories. Stories of the people on our website, and of the Filipinos I heard speak the first time I attended an event with NextDayBetter. I am moved by experiences of Filipinos who choose to stay in the Philippines rather than go abroad because they want to fight for their communities, and stories of Filipinos who left and returned because they believed they could make it better. I am driven by stories of people like my partner Jérôme and my sister who works with Filipino youth, like the amazing team of NextDayBetter, like the people who email us on a weekly basis wanting to learn more about social enterprises and how they can contribute – people who may be far from where they came from but wear their Filipino-ness close to their hearts. I strive for the day we can finally shed off the description of Filipinos as “resilient people” and replace it instead with words like; “innovative”, “empathetic”, “passionate”, “intelligent”, and “entrepreneurial “.

These are the things that drive me and put my doubts to rest, and though I am still discovering what it means to be Filipina, I know I am not alone and there are people like me and different from me who are trying to achieve the same goals. I am so humbled and excited to be able to continue to share the stories of such amazing organizations and people with you.

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Gelaine Santiago: Gelaine, a Filipino-Canadian, is co-founder of ChooseSocial.PH – the go-to resource to learn about the social enterprise scene in the Philippines. She works as an HR professional in Toronto during the day and loves to talk about all things social enterprises, women’s and minority rights, entrepreneurship, tech, start-ups, and food (of course).