SECRETARY, ERIE MAESTRO
MLIS, MIS
Vancouver Public Library, Kensington Branch Head
Local 391, the union of library workers, under the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
Former Children’s Librarian, Children’s Outreach Librarian, Asst. Manager for the Parent-Child Mother Goose Program and Man in the Moon programs.
Introduced the first Nanay Gansa (Mother Goose in Filipino) and the first Pinoy Storytime and Pinoy Baby Welcoming.
Erie has worked in many various jobs in Canada and in the Philippines including working as Filipino-English interpreter for the Canada Refugee and Immigration Board, as a women’s organizer, a human rights worker, writer of “population abstracts”, a History high school teacher. She continues to write a column “Tinig Migrante” (Migrant Voice) for the Philippine Asia News Today in Vancouver and contributes to the Philippine Reporter in Toronto.
Arts, Culture & Community
Co-founded the Immigrant Women’s Support Association in Halifax, Nova Scotia
Founding member of Migrante BC, the grassroots organization dedicated to the protection and promotion of the rights and welfare of Filipino migrants and immigrants (2009)
Founding member of Canada Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights, a solidarity group fighting for human rights in the Philippines (2008).
Founding member of Migrante BC’s Philippine Artists Network for Community Integrative Transformation (PANCIT).
Current Chair of the Board of Migrante BC (since 2018). In 2019, Migrante BC received the City of Vancouver's Award for Excellence for Diversity and Inclusion.
In 2018, Erie was a Delegate at the Cascade Regional Labour Leadership Initiative Class on 2018, organized by the Labor Education and Research Center at the University of Oregon in partnership with the Worker Institute at Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Education
Master of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University (1994)
Master of Archival Studies from UBC (2004).
BA in History from the University of the Philippines.