Filipino Fridays Episode September 27, 2021
Community Cultivator Series featuring CAMBIO & CO's Gelaine Santiago
11:00am - 12:30pm
Hey y'all! We're back with another powerful episode - our special guest is Gelaine Santiago, co-founder and CEO of Cambio & Co., a Filipino jewelry company that provides sustainable livelihood for artisans in the Philippines and empowers Filipinos in the diaspora to #WearYourHeritage.
Whether it's sharing stories rooted in empowerment in the Filipino cultural identity, leading in purpose-driven decolonizing strategies, authentic allyship, to highlighting Filipino craftsmanship and excellence by building a company centered in meaningful relationships with local artisans, thus creating sustainable and dignified means of livelihood for communities.
We discuss setting intentions when partnering with artisans, cultivating meaningful relationships in business, and acknowledging the intimacy of building trust in setting the foundation for Filipino representation. Learning from leaders like Rags2Riches, Anthill Fabric Gallery who work on challenging colonial mentalities and tackling issues like eradicating poverty, Gelaine shares how she was inspired by hearing stories from the artisans who value of their craft. We talk about the coming to terms with having uncomfortable conversations regarding our cultural identity. Acknowledging that we are all at different stages in our cultural journey and celebrating the coming together to have these candid discussions - how do we have these discussions with others who have different views than us? By approaching the situation with curiosity and empathy rather than judgement and understand that you can also approach with love but hold space for accountability. She shares how we can analyze where we should find ourselves by asking the question, "are you coming from the right place?" We also talk about how some are not ready for the conversation and lean into standing in your own truth. After understanding who we are first, we are then able to teach, educate and share what it means to be an ally to other disenfranchised communities.
Gelaine Santiago is a speaker, writer, and social entrepreneur. Her mission is to build an ecosystem of BIPOC-owned businesses that create wealth to uplift marginalized communities.
She’s the co-founder and CEO of Cambio & Co., a Filipino jewelry company that provides sustainable livelihood for artisans in the Philippines and empowers Filipinos in the diaspora to #WearYourHeritage. She’s also the CEO of Sinta & Co., a boutique for socially conscious Filipino weddings. Gelaine is also the creative behind Fierce Fans Forever, a weekly newsletter about content marketing and authentic storytelling for BIPOC e-commerce founders.
Her work has been featured in Cosmopolitan Magazine, Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, CBC, Rappler, OMNI Television and ABS-CBN. Gelaine was also a recipient of the RBC Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Award in 2019.
Connect with her at www.gelainesantiago.com and on Instagram
You can also find us at shopcambio.co and shopsinta.co
Thank you to our partners CiTR 101.9 FM for supporting this podcast. Follow Filipino Fridays Podcast on Instagram: @FilipinoFridaysPodcast Email us at contact@filipinofridays.com. Music: Hot Coffee by Patrick Patrikios