Woman warrior
Credit to Author: BERNADETTE T. REYES| Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2019 17:16:57 +0000
Amina Evangelista Swanepoel
Founding Executive Director
Roots of Health
This Wellesley graduate has always had a heart for others. She got her life ethic from her parents, whom she says instilled in her the drive to help create a better and more just world. Women’s reproductive health care is now benefiting from her efforts.
“They [the girls] never even seemed to have the language to describe what happened to them. They would tell my mom that their boyfriend had come over and ‘something happened.’”
AMINA “Ami” Evangelista Swanepoel is the founding executive director of Roots of Health, a reproductive health organization based in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan. Born to a Filipino father, Oscar Evangelista, and an American mother, Susan Potter, both educators, Ami lived a privileged life. Her parents sent her to private schools in the Philippines and abroad.
But despite these opportunities, Ami has always been aware of those with less in life.
She remembers her mother, a teacher at Ateneo de Manila University for 30 years, bringing her to a depressed community in Balara, Quezon City, when the former was deeply involved in social work. There, Amina saw kids older than she was who were nutritionally deprived and needy. As a student of the UP Integrated School (UPIS) from primary to high school, she engaged with classmates who came from a range of economic backgrounds. Ami says: “My parents were huge influences on my growing up. They are social justice warriors, and they instilled in my sister, brother and me that we should all be doing our part to create a better and more just world.
“My mom’s motto that she passed on to us was ‘live simply that others may simply live.’ ”
Ami hoped to study overseas for college, and to prepare for this, she enrolled in Brent School Baguio, which offered grades 11 and 12, required by foreign institutions. She chose the famous Wellesley College in Massachusetts, a member of the “Seven Sisters,” historically known as “women’s colleges.” Recalling the experience, she says: “It was a very strange experience to go to an all-women’s institution, but I loved the focus on women and how nurtured we all were.”
At Wellesley, she encountered issues from gender-based violence, discrimination, sexism and inequality to gender constructs and the ways that many religions treat women. “That cemented my interest in the situation of women and girls, and made me predisposed to the experiences I then pursued later. Wellesley made me the feminist I am today, who believes in equality between men and women, and [built] my commitment to the idea that women should be able to decide what they want to do with their lives.”
After graduation, Ami worked as an Asia associate for the New York headquarters of Human Rights Watch, assisting its researchers in releasing reports, plan their field missions, and keeping up-to-date with the political and social scene in the countries they worked on. During her stint there, she returned to the Philippines as research assistant to Jonathan Cohen, then a researcher with the HIV and Human Rights program and now director of the Open Society Public Health Program at the Open Society Institute, which works to battle discrimination and abuse in the health care setting.
“Jonathan taught me so much about HIV advocacy and the problems the Philippines was facing. He influenced greatly my decision to apply to graduate school in public health and international affairs,” Ami says.
She applied and was accepted into her top choice programs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and at the Mailman School of Public Health. Since her interest veered toward health and human rights in relation to HIV, she was placed in the sexual and reproductive health track of the Population and Family Health program at the Mailman School. Here, she not only studied HIV in depth, but adolescent and women’s sexual and reproductive health as well. “Human Rights Watch really led me down the path I’m on today!”
In 2005, Ami met her husband, Marcus Swanepoel, a South African, in Boracay. He followed her to New York, where they married. When they were ready to leave the city three years later to try something new, the Philippines, by way of Ami’s mother Susan, beckoned. At the time, Mrs. Evangelista was teaching at Palawan State University where the increasing rate of female students dropping out due to unplanned pregnancies frustrated her no end. “They [the girls] never even seemed to have the language to describe what happened to them. They would tell my mom that their boyfriend had come over and ‘something happened.’ ”
Since Ami had a degree in public health and Marcus was a teacher, Mrs. Evangelista asked the young couple if they would be keen to start an organization with her that would teach college students about reproductive health. “We agreed,” Ami recalls. “And the rest is history!” It’s been 10 years since Roots of Health was conceived.
The center targeted college students at first, but soon included high schoolers, since as Ami and her team discovered “pregnancies were happening even earlier.” Ami adds: “We also realized that many communities around Puerto Princesa had women, who could not control their fertility. Most did not have ample information about reproductive health, and many could not access the services they needed from their health centers. We started having education classes about reproductive health in communities as well. After a few months, women started asking us to provide them services as well, and that’s when we hired our first nurse.” Roots of Health now boasts a staff of 25 people, who are public health professionals, nurses, midwives and educators.
“It was by chance that my parents moved to Palawan and invited us to start Roots of Health here,” Ami observes. “But it was also serendipitous because Palawan has the worst reproductive health situation in the Mimaropa (Mindoro-Marinduque-Romblon-Palawan) region, and has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates and incidences of HIV in the country. We’ve been working with our government counterparts and are slowly, but surely, improving the reproductive health situation in our province.”
Ami looks back with pride at what has been achieved so far. In the last 10 years, the organization has provided over 20,000 women and girls with their contraceptive of choice and over 40,000 young people with comprehensive sexuality education focused on puberty, general reproductive health and HIV. It has teamed up with been working with local government units (LGUs) to create Municipal Implementation Teams for the Reproductive Health Law, as well as helping them to craft pro-reproductive health ordinances to ensure that reproductive rights and health are protected and prioritized.
“I feel hugely privileged to spend my time in a role that is so fulfilling and meaningful to me. I never feel that I don’t want to go to work because I love what I do,” Ami says. “Marcus [my husband] and I work well together, and the organization has definitely brought us closer. I love knowing that he is a feminist, who works day and night to protect the reproductive health and rights of women and girls in Palawan.
The pair has two young children, Lucas, 8, and Aliya, 6 with whom they make sure to spend quality time despite their punishing schedules. “But we definitely carve out time to spend with our kids,” their mom says. “We go to work in the morning, but are usually home by five, so, we are with them for several hours before they go to bed.” Undoubtedly, there are times when Ami feels the pangs of guilt that every working parent goes through. “They ask why I have to go away, and why can’t I stay home with them. Marcus and I make sure they know what we do, and why it’s important that we work to help other people.”
There are many more things Ami hopes to achieve with Roots of Health. “I want to help Palawan get to the point where we’re not needed anymore.”
That’s a wish we hope will come true sooner than later.
In 2005, Ami met her husband, Marcus Swanepoel, a South African, in Boracay. He followed her to New York, where they married. When they were ready to leave the city three years later to try something new, the Philippines, by way of Ami’s mother Susan, beckoned. At the time, Mrs. Evangelista was teaching at Palawan State University, where the increasing rate of female students dropping out due to unplanned pregnancies frustrated her no end. Ami says: “They [the girls] never even seemed to have the language to describe what happened to them. They would tell my mom that their boyfriend had come over and ‘something happened.’”
Since Ami had a degree in public health and Marcus was a teacher, Mrs. Evangelista asked the young couple if they would be keen to start an organization with her that would teach college students about reproductive health. “We agreed,” Ami recalls. “And the rest is history!” It’s been 10 years since Roots of Health was conceived.
The center targeted college students at first, but soon included high schoolers, since as Ami and her team discovered, “pregnancies were happening even earlier.” Ami adds: “We also realized that many communities around Puerto Princesa had women, who could not control their fertility. Most did not have ample information about reproductive health, and many could not access the services they needed from their health centers. We started having education classes about reproductive health in communities as well. After a few months, women started asking us to provide them services as well, and that’s when we hired our first nurse.” Roots of Health now boasts a staff of 25 people, who are public health professionals, nurses, midwives and educators.
“It was by chance that my parents moved to Palawan and invited us to start Roots of Health here,” Ami says. “But it was also serendipitous because Palawan has the worst reproductive health situation in the Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan) region, and has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates and incidences of HIV in the country. We’ve been working with our government counterparts and are slowly, but surely, improving the reproductive health situation in our province.”
Ami looks back with pride at what has been achieved so far. In the last 10 years, the organization has provided over 20,000 women and girls with their contraceptive of choice and over 40,000 young people with comprehensive sexuality education focused on puberty, general reproductive health and HIV. It has teamed up with been working with local government units (LGUs) to create Municipal Implementation Teams for the Reproductive Health Law, as well as helping them to craft pro-reproductive health ordinances to ensure that reproductive rights and health are protected and prioritized.
“I feel hugely privileged to spend my time in a role that is so fulfilling and meaningful to me. I never feel that I don’t want to go to work because I love what I do,” Ami says. “Marcus and I work well together, and the organization has definitely brought us closer. I love knowing that he is a feminist, who works day and night to protect the reproductive health and rights of women and girls in Palawan.
The pair has two young children: Lucas, 8, and Aliya, 6 with whom they make sure to spend quality time despite their punishing schedules. “But we definitely carve out time to spend with our kids,” their mom says. “We go to work in the morning, but are usually home by five, so, we are with them for several hours before they go to bed.” Undoubtedly, there are times when Ami feels the pangs of guilt that every working parent goes through. “They ask why I have to go away, and why can’t I stay home with them. Marcus and I make sure they know what we do, and why it’s important that we work to help other people.”
There are many more things Ami hopes to achieve with Roots of Health. “I want to help Palawan get to the point where we’re not needed anymore.”
That’s a wish we hope will come true sooner than later.
About me
ROLE MODEL
So many! My mom Susan Evangelista, who’s so strong and determined and relentlessly optimistic that things will always work out…my sister Sara Reysio-Cruz, Dr. Junice Melgar, Dr. Espie Cabral and Widney Brown.
FIRST PAYCHECK
It was a work-study job at the center for work and service at Wellesley college, the school’s career center. I made minimum wage: around $5 an hour. I helped students find internship positions and improve their resumes.
GOAL
To end teen pregnancy in Palawan!
MORNING RITUAL
I get up before 5 a.m., have my coffee and quiet time and catch up on messages that came in overnight. Then, I go to my 6:30 a.m. crossfit class.
LIFE FACT
I am incapable of working all night. My brain shuts down by around 9 p.m., and can’t do it anymore. I never pulled an all nighter in school. I have to sleep!
TIME SPENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA
I spend the most time on Instagram which is where I post personal photos and stories. Because I have so many acquaintance connections on Facebook, I limit that mostly to posts relating to work.