By Frances Balagtas and Rachelle Ocampo, guest contributors Delegates from across the nation will, for the first time, attend Filipino American leadership conferences that are under one, unified theme – “Your Move.”
Pilipino American Unity for Progress, Inc. (UniPro), Fil-Am Young Leaders Program (FYLPro), and Empowering Pilipino Youth through Collaboration (EPYC) agreed on the theme with hopes that this initiative will jump-start a movement of cohesion between all Fil-Am leadership conferences across the country.
After collaborating with other organizers across the country, members of Pilipino American Unity for Progress, Inc. developed a concept to challenge delegates to leave their mark by making their move.
“We wanted to show that unity can be accomplished and all it took was to reach out and talk to each other,” President of UniPro Rachelle Ocampo said.
“The usual talk about collaboration among Filipino organizations across the nation is old news, but this milestone is significant. We encourage organizers with similar interests to contact us.”
WAIPAHU, HAWAII
The first of three conferences will be the Fil-Am Young Leaders Summit on Saturday, May 3 from 8 am to 4 pm at the Filipino Community Center in Waipahu, Hawaii. The Summit’s keynote speaker will be Tony Olaes, President and CEO of ODM Enterprise as well as Chairman of U.S. Gawad Kalinga.
The Summit intends to bring outstanding young leaders of Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose L. Cuisia’s FIlAm Young Leaders Program from all over the country to empower, inspire and discuss solutions on how to advance Fil-Am interests. For more information, please visit www.fylsummit.com.
NEW YORK CITY
The movement will continue to New York City with the Annual UniPro Summit: The Multinational Forum for Pilipino Young Adults, Students and Youth at Fashion Institute of Technology on Saturday, May 31. UniPro wants to challenge the delegates to find themselves in their community and address its needs by aligning themselves with organizations to not limit their potential.
Through panel discussion, guest speakers will present how they found their place in the community, and will share what they have accomplished, what issues they are tackling, what still needs to be accomplished and how the delegates can contribute. Check out more information on the summit at 4thsummit.strikingly.com/.
SAN DIEGO, CA
The third conference under the same theme “Your Move” is the youth-oriented component of The National Federation of Filipino American Association’s (NaFFAA) annual empowerment conference called Empowering Pilipino Youth through Collaboration (EPYC) in San Diego, California from August 7 to August 10.
The leadership development institute aims to facilitate collaboration between regional Filipino American student organizations across North America, for the purpose of networking and sharing of best practices for student organizing. They envision an international community of Filipino American student leaders that consistently communicate, learn from each other, and exchange ideas to improve its reach and impact to Filipino American youth. The conference would like to promote substantial, sustainable and more effective mobilization of the youth. For more information, please visit empowerment.naffaa10.org.
MORE INFORMATION
Continue the discussion by sharing what your move is with: #MyMoveIs
FYLPro – KIT ZULUETA faylsummit@gmail.com (808) 291-9407
UniPro – RACHELLE OCAMPO info@unipronow.org (908)UNIPRO8
EPYC – LEEZEL RAMOS leezel@naffaa10.org
The original version of this post originally appeared on the FYL Summit Blog, and has been republished here with permission from FYLPro.