"Kaya ko" means "I can." In the same spirit, Kaya Collaborative (or Kaya Co.) is building towards a global Filipino community that holds power in the collective. Our mission: to inspire, educate, and mobilize the young Filipino diaspora as partners in long-term, locally led social change in the Philippines.
We envision a Philippines that is empowered, inclusive, resilient, and proud. A nation in which people can live - and live fully - without having to long so deeply for life elsewhere.
This means investing in initiatives that build towards…
- an engaged, empowered, and equipped citizen force
- a thriving and inclusive national economy
- quality education for all children
- infrastructure to sustain the health of people and planet
We see that the Philippines is at a historical moment of People Power: that local leaders have risen from all sectors to enact this shared vision of a better nation. We see that many of these initiatives are small, young, but rapidly emerging - and the time has never been riper for us to mobilize global resources to accelerate their scale.
We see the diaspora as an untapped resource to fuel this growth - but at the same time we see that diaspora engagement strategies have missed the very ripest opportunities for impact. The destination of remittances and philanthropic investments has largely been at the surface level, in the short term, driven more by recognition than real efficacy and information.
We see powerful levers within our reach: levers that have been largely ignored by dominant thought in the sector. They hinge on consciousness, culture, community, education - and the narrative that ties this all together. It's about identity; it's about movement building; it's about a diaspora that's inspired, educated, and mobilized around the realities, opportunities, and power of homeland.
We are building an institution that will play this role through:
- Developing and connecting leaders to head this shift in paradigm (Fellowship)
- Supporting these leaders in engaging people and whole communities around them (Primer, Constellations, Post-Fellowship, and more)
- Building the infrastructure to support and sustain this broader engagement (Compass)
In the midst of all this, the Kaya Codex will be our ever-evolving resource on anything and everything related to our mission and our work.
The ideas we generate, the projects we push forward, the resources that inspire us, and the community we build through this work will form an institutional memory of where we've been and where we are as a collective - as well as where we're all going, together.
Yours in co-creation,
the Kaya Co. leadership team