TRAVELS (and more) WITH CECILIA BRAINARD: Aurorita Mendoza

Monday, September 21, 2015

Opinion: Aurorita Mendoza On the European Refugee Crisis #refugeecrisis

"In my dealings with migrant communities ...I find that they are just like you and me."
~ by Aurorita Mendoza, International Consultant on International Affairs

AURORITA MENDOZA, an International Consultant on International Affairs, answers my questions about the current European Refugee Crisis. Aurorita attended Maryknoll College in the Philippines and worked for years at the UNAIDS as Regional Program Adviser and Advocacy Adviser. She now lives in Switzerland.

She says she is not an unbiased stakeholder on issues related to migration. For several years now, she has been engaged in the field of migration, particularly from the perspective of migrant health, doing research, policy and program development, and collaborations with institutional and civil society mechanisms. Her area of specialization is the Southeast Asian region, but the factors fueling migration as well as migration policy and program issues cut across regional borders. Her perspectives are based on interactions with Bhutanese refugees during her three years in Nepal and working on migrant issues in the Mekong region. This engagement is the basis of her belief that the response to migration/refugee crises in any part of the world must be a non-discriminatory and humanitarian one.

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's official website is ceciliabrainarddotcom. She is the award-winning author and editor of 22 books, including When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, The Newspaper Widow, Magdalena, Selected Stories, Vigan and Other Stories, and more. She edited Growing Up Filipino 1, 2, & 3, Fiction by Filipinos in America, Contemporary Fiction by Filipinos in America, and other books.. Her work has been translated into Finnish and Turkish; and many of her stories and articles have been widely anthologized. Cecilia has received many awards, including a California Arts Council Fellowship in Fiction, a Brody Arts Fund Award, a Special Recognition Award for her work dealing with Asian American youths, as well as a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate, 21st District, and the Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city, Cebu, Philippines. She has lectured and performed at UCLA, USC, University of Connecticut, University of the Philippines, PEN, Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and many others. She has served in the Board of literary arts groups such as PEN, PAWWA (Pacific Asian American Writers West), among others.