I am a mass communication graduate with a deep interest in the development sector. After a decade of work focused on promoting social development ideas and initiatives in the Philippines, I am now studying Community Development Work in order to better understand ways by which social growth and development can be achieved at the community level.

As a student in Toronto, I humbly and gratefully acknowledge that the land that I am currently on is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. I likewise recognize that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 signed with the Mississaugas of the Credit, and the Williams Treaties signed with multiple Mississaugas and Chippewa bands. With this understanding, my role as a treaty person and future community development worker is to stand as a community partner, and to understand Indigenous perceptions and views in order to effectively support the Indigenous communities' work for change that will finally address the historic and present-day racism towards First Nations, as well as respect their rights to self-determination and territorial title.