#nextdaybetter

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ORLANDO, FL – June 4, 2015 – “How do you make the next day better?”

NextDayBetter, a creative speaker and food series for migrant communities, challenges the boldest thinkers around the city and the world, to answer this question. The social impact startup celebrates the stories of changemakers from “untapped communities,” such as the global Filipino community, and calls them to action.

On Saturday, June 13, 2015, NextDayBetter + Orlando will be running their first event in the open community space provided by Envy Labs, located in Downtown Orlando. This multi-faceted event will be highlighting a variety of speakers representing diaspora communities from Filipino, Indian, Chinese, and Taiwanese descent.

“To say that this is just Mickey and Harry’s town is an understatement. Just look at what’s happening in the tech scene, in sports, medicine, and simulations, to name a few. We are creators forming our identity, like cocoons coming out of our shell emerging into something uniquely beautiful. We haven’t even started to fly out and show the world what we can do. We are just getting started,” says Filipino American and City Curator for Orlando, Cesar Abueg.

Featured speakers will include Varick Rosete and Dennis Eusebio, natives of Jacksonville and two out of three founders of One Spark. The highly successful crowdfunding festival that raised over $100,000 back in April 2015, with an attendance of nearly 300,000, was started by Elton Rivas, along with Varick and Dennis in 2013. The two of them are now part of the Board of Directors of One Spark and will be sharing their insights on how they grew their small idea into a highly-anticipated community-driven event.

Food is included in the admission and provided mainly from food truck chef, Clarito Macalalad of Curbside Chef. Macalalad totes a menu of “global fusion” dishes while also advocating healthy, organic and sustainable practices. Philippines-inspired food will also be provided by Jonjie Sibayan, owner of Pao Cafe of Tampa, Florida.  As one of the food sponsors for the event, Sibayan will be providing delectable treats and dishes from the Philippines.

The NextDayBetter + Orlando team and featured speakers include several of the people behind the first-ever Kamayan Filipino Feast held back in December. Renowned food blogger Julius Mayo Jr. of Droolius.com is the City Co-Curator, Lordfer Lalicon of Kappo East End is a speaker, and Jonjie Sibayan of Pao Cafe is one of the sponsors for NextDayBetter + Orlando. Over 75 attendees lavished on the event’s array of delectable dishes while eating with their hands, the traditional Filipino way of eating called “kamayan style”, back in December. Today, their involvement with NextDayBetter +Orlando event will reach out to a global community.

To complement these numerous city events, NextDayBetter’s 2015 Global Speaker Series will conclude this year in November in Manila, Philippines. The event is a call for innovators and changemakers from the Filipino global community and beyond to return to the Philippines and collaborate to solve various world issues such as the future of industries, climate change, and the future of learning.

To purchase tickets for NextDayBetter + Orlando, visit the event page here: bit.ly/ndbORL.

NextDayBetter + Orlando Envy Labs | 618 E South Street, Suite 620 Saturday, June 13, 2015 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

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

Contact

For more information, please contact: Cesar Abueg at [email protected]

The following article was originally published through our content partner, Rappler.

NEW YORK CITY – The story of the undocumented US immigrant found a face in Jose Antonio Vargas when he revealed his status in an iconic New York Times piece. It shook the national conversation and put a spotlight on the 11.7 million people without papers. Seth Ronquillo, a 22-year-old filmmaker originally from Caloocan City, Philippines, was also a part of that number.

“It takes courage to share your story to one person just on an individual level. But sharing it to the whole world? That takes even more courage,” he said. “I thought ‘Wow! Someone is just like me’ and that was really, really, inspiring.”

Like Vargas, Ronquillo did not learn of his undocumented status until he was a teenager. He moved to the states ten years ago in June 2004 with his mother, two brothers, and father, and realized this during college applications. A college counselor asked for immigration documentation and he learned that his H4 visa expired on the first day of his senior year. The next summer, during orientation at UCLA, he learned to call himself “undocumented.” The only reason he could even enroll was thanks to a scholarship from “The Price is Right” TV host Drew Carey, who heard Ronquillo’s story after he attended the show. He maintained tuition with tutoring plus scholarships and financial aid made possible by the California DREAM Act passed in 2011.

Ronquillo likens the discovery of his undocumented status in the US to being a mutant in X-Men.

It’s only natural for the filmmaker to use a movie metaphor: like mutants in that fictional world, he thought he was the only one of his kind. He felt alone. Then, he found his community. Through that, he found strength. You can even consider him a superhero, of sorts, as an active leader for the visibility of undocumented youth in California.

The keyword here is visibility. Ronquillo is not hiding, like many other immigrants without papers living in the States. You could see him at the front lines of rallies and leading other undocumented youth on campus as co-chair of UCLA’s IDEAs, and you could see him, or rather his work, in the 10-minute documentary short called US. After being heavily involved with organizing undocumented youth, he realized most stories were told from the Latino perspective. He aimed to show diversity.

“US” chronicles the tough realities of his family’s move from the Philippines and stay in the United States. As you watch the film, with its home footage, one on one interviews and old photographs, his family immediately feels like yours. His story feels like one you already know. His family feels like neighbors. You witness his mother tearing up as she reflects on the simple life they’ve lived.

“I never asked my mom how she feels about being undocumented,” he continued, “I thought that camera, that setting of interviewer, interviewee, gave me that license to ask those questions. It gave me that boldness to ask those questions.”

Noticeably absent in interviews is his father, who had to leave the US two years ago. Thinking about the separation was the only thing that made Ronquillo–high-spirited and loquacious–go quiet. “I graduated college twice and for neither one of them my dad was in there,” he said. “Thinking about his loneliness being apart from us, missing birthdays, Father’s Day, is one of the things that I have to wrestle with.”

What was originally a school project–Ronquillo convinced his family to participate by reasoning he needed an A in class–catapulted to a bigger audience than he ever imagined.

“US” collected awards like best 2013 undergraduate documentary at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, is an official selection for The Americas Film Festival of New York, and recently aired on Southern California’s public television station KCET. Clearly, Ronquillo is anything but a “TNT”–tago ng tago–an identification he rejects.

“With hiding, there is shame. The reason why the word “TNT” in the Filipino community is so prevalent and easy is because they know people who are afraid about their stories, who are afraid of undocumentedness. Once we stop hiding, we let go of that shame. An effective way to debunk that myth of the TNT is by sharing our stories.”

Ronquillo always dreamed of being a storyteller. As a child he wanted to be an animator before realizing illustration was not his forté. So, he channeled his creativity through film. If you ask him if he’s ever dreamed of winning Academy Awards or seeing his film titles on marquees, however, he couldn’t tell you. As long as his life is intertwined with policy, Ronquillo doesn’t even know if he can imagine his future five or ten years from now, let alone claim his own “American Dream.”

“Knowing the reality of the lives that undocumented immigrants live, I feel that for me I can’t just think about my dream and not uplift the needs of others in my community,” he said, “They are my dreams. When I think about success I think about the way we are able to touch other people with our stories.” – Rappler.com

Kristina Rodulfo is a NYC writer and editor with a journalist’s curiosity, novelist’s creativity, and tweeter’s perspective. Her number one passion is being a storyteller for the Filipino community. Follow her on Twitter: @KristinaRodulfo.

A Rappler Hangout with immigration activist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas produced in collaboration with NextDayBetter and Guerrero Yee LLP will happen next Thursday, July 3 Manila time (July 2 in New York). Full details here.

An English Heritage blue plaque in Primrose Hill commemorates Dr. Jose Rizal, a famous writer and national hero who lived there. He travelled to England in 1888 to study “Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas” by Antonio de Morga and research other historical documents at the British Museum.

Fast forward to the present day, to press reports about a certain member of the royal family, who has a tendency to make awkward remarks about foreign nationals. During a visit to a British hospital, the Duke of Edinburgh told a Filipina nurse:

“The Philippines must be half empty — you’re all here running the NHS!”

These two people, the scholar and the nurse, illustrate the duality of the Filipino identity – immigrants to countries across the globe, yet also local citizens, depending on the passport or generation.

We are a diaspora; scattered or dispersed populations, who are both home and away, here and there, local and global.

London is a bustling melting pot of internationals, foreign locals and multi-generational communities, a true world capital of the 21st century. The exponential creativity made possible by intense human friction happens in cities like London, which is uniquely eccentric, because its residents are miscellaneous and cosmopolitan, and not because of its location in England or the UK.

The same could be said about being Filipino. It’s a mash-up racial identity of different tribal ingredients. My version for example, comprises of being born in Manila, with Southeast Asian physical attributes, a Spanish name, a weird North American accent, and British citizenship. Filipinos are like their dessert ‘halo-halo,’ which translates as ‘mixed together’.

On visiting the Philippines, the actor Bill Murray observed:

“This is like ‘Mendel’s garden’ because it had been invaded by so many different countries over the years, and you could see the children shared the genetic traits of all their invaders over the years, and it made for this beautiful varietal garden.”

However, many of us define our lives and identities more by the values we want to stand for, rather than just the signifiers of our ethnic group. This is why my fellow curators and I accepted the challenge to transplantNextDayBetter in London.

We want to be part of something that encourages our peers and younger generations to go after what they are passionate about, and by doing so, make a truly positive and meaningful impact in their community.

We believe that real change in society results from the small steps we all take individually to improve ourselves, and collectively this will affect the lives of those around us. NextDayBetter hopes to facilitate this process, by connecting people, to exchange ideas and activate projects through partnerships, with the intent to tangibly solve issues that matter.

Coincidentally, London also offers freedom, where people choose their own adventures, experiences and social connections according to taste rather than the dictates of a tribe. It’s a culturally rich soil for diverse people and ideas, both old and new. The city is buzzing with creativity, as we witness pop-ups, start-ups and technology hubs multiplying. Some of these festivals and street feasts with artisanal novelties even remind us of our Filipino ‘sari-sari’ stores.

  A sari-sari store — makeshift and DIY convenience shops

The possibilities for making a better future lie in the various ways that society attempts to address human needs, but not simply material goods for consumption.

We agree with the combined ethos of More Like People, New Citizenship Project, and TheHappy Startup School for example, in pushing for a more genuinely participatory culture, and reinstalling a sense of humanity in the ways we organise ourselves for a better world.

To return to Dr Jose Rizal and our immigrant nurse, they were individuals who wanted to make the next day better, for themselves and for other people. The desire for a brighter future is universal, and we move around the globe to find whatever it is that will solve our problems to make us flourish. Given the opportunity, we are all tourists and travellers seeking to improve ourselves.

My favourite map of the world is the Fuller Dymaxion projection – because it shows that we all are human settlers in a one-island earth planet. There is unity in diversity, if we choose to see beyond the limitations of borders and institutionalised nationhood.

The interwovenness of our lives is the source of our solidarity and the solutions we seek. We want to dig deeper into what this means, by exploring the cultural ‘invasions’ that are native, imported and indigenous.

How NextDayBetter evolves will depend on the humans who want to be involved. As a speaker series, we’re interested in the fusion of people and projects that present a work-in-progress account of what is being done. We want to steer a collision of #firstworldproblems with #thirdworldproblems.

If you are interested in connecting with people, exchanging ideas and activating projects, then we look forward to meeting you!

PS. We are including a food tasting session at our launch. By attending, you get to experience the flavour of what we are trying to do, and then decide whether you want more of it.

Tickets: www.bit.ly/ndblondon

NextDayBetter + London | #ndbLDN Saturday 29 November 2014 11AM – 4PM Runway East 9th floor, 207 Old Street London, EC1V

Connect with our NextDayBetter global community: Web: www.nextdaybetter.com Facebook: /nextdaybetter Twitter: @NextDayBetter Instagram: @NextDayBetter

Educational inequality in the United States is a gigantic issue. Students from low-income families are five times as likely to dropout of high school or college than their peers. Even if they do make it to college, many of them still lack the practical skills to flourish in today’s fast-paced global economy.

Enter Estelle Reyes, one of the changemakers chiseling away at this issue. She is the electrically vibrant yet down-to-earth Executive Director for the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship in Los Angeles, a nonprofit that has affected the lives of 10,000 young people under her leadership. Through its education programs, NFTE (aptly pronounced nifty) gives students the tools to upstart their own ingenious business ideas and engages them with the spirit of entrepreneurship- tackling complex problems with a creative edge.

She’ll be one of the amazing speakers gracing the stage at NextDayBetter + Los Angeles on Saturday, August 16th at General Assembly. Learn more about the event and RSVP here: bit.ly/UtyfRv

Below, she shares with us her story, her career insights, and why she’s dedicated to education.

Going with the flow

“If you’re interested in something, immerse yourself in it and then connect the dots… somehow the universe will find a way to give it to you.”

In college I was pre-med and majored in neuroscience, and then when I graduated I just didn’t want to go to any more school. My senior year I was a mega slacker. All my roommates were going to job fairs and I was just chilling and hanging out on the couch. I just didn’t know what I wanted.

One day my parents met a couple while eating in Chinatown and they happened to have a daughter who worked at Goldman Sachs. I called her up and after having a really good conversation she said that I should apply to Goldman, even though I’ve never had any type of business background. After fourteen interviews, I got a position in Private Wealth Management and worked as a financial analyst for two years.

While I loved the dynamic work environment, I found that I was always drawn to more community related work. I’ve always had a passion for education. After Goldman, I had no job again. I didn’t have a credential for public school teaching so I hustled and printed a list of Catholic schools in the Bay Area that I started cold calling one at a time. The principal of one school that had a first grade teacher opportunity happened to be in LA. I drove all my stuff up and moved to the Bay Area a week later.

Though I worked more hours as a teacher than at Goldman, I found it so much more rewarding. But even though I loved it, I felt like I wasn’t having as big an impact as I wanted. Only one class a year. So I went back to school to get my Masters of Ed in Human Development and Psychology at Harvard. Afterwards, I looked for a job for a long time. I had no luck until I heard that NFTE was opening an LA office and wanted someone to help with piloting. I started working as a Program Director and then transitioned to Executive Director two years later.

Now, not only can I blend what I learned in Goldman Sachs and school together, I get to live my personal passion every day. The grueling path doesn’t matter to me, because I knew the end goal. I get to do what I love to do everyday and get paid for it, and that’s such a treat.

A broad-smiling Estelle Reyes at NFTE’s Semi-Finals Coaching Night.

Leading the way

“I think that the reason why I feel confident in my role as a leader is because I first learned how to follow.”

The reason I get how this office works is because I’ve done every role. I’ve been program director. I’ve done grant writing. I’ve done all the things it takes to run this office. The way I am in terms of leading is I like to give people the big picture and the goals. Then I delegate. I do check in and see how I can help, but they know the best way to get there because it’s their goal. When you give people freedom they can fly so much higher than if you’re holding their hand.

The power of education in entrepreneurship

“If you are able to help students understand that the world doesn’t happen to them, they happen to the world, switching that perspective is really transformative.”

The really powerful thing about teaching kids about entrepreneurship is that it causes such a ripple effect. They in turn can teach their parents. If they actually launch a business and start operating it, then they’re able to help their communities and start commerce.

Teaching them about entrepreneurship helps with so many things- being more engaged in school, problem solving, learning how to present in public and be more confident. For example, one of NFTE’s National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge winners named Hayley Hoverter created a business called Pinch. When she was little, her mom worked as a barista at Starbucks, and was always distressed by the amount of trash she saw. What she did was invent an organic sugar packet that dissolves in your beverage, leaving no trace of waste. She wrote a provisional patent for her product when she was 16, graduated high school, and is now going to Dartmouth.

Estelle Reyes with her NFTE Team and students at their National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge in New York (October 2013).

The spirit of self-discovery

“I’m a super adventurer. I will try anything at least once…”

I think that kind of spirit is really fitting because that kind of attitude is super entrepreneurial. ‘I will hustle. I will do this. I’m not scared of things.’ If there’s a challenge, let me think of ways to solve it and try things we haven’t tried before. That spirit enables me to be the best I can be personally, and then I can infuse that into my professional life.

Photos courtesy of Estelle Reyes and NextDayBetter.

About the Author | Sherina Ong is an aspiring changemaker currently attending the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia for graduate studies. She is a NextDayBetter contributor, whose writing has been published on Rappler, The Origami, and the Pilipino American Unity for Progress (UniPro) blog.