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Ava Vivian Gonzalez


Ava has written essays, reviews, and features for ISIS International’s Women in Action, the Philippines-Fookien Times Yearbook, TODAY, and other publications. Ava worked with WeDpro as a volunteer on the project “The Youth Tell Their Stories: Breaking Silences, Using ICTs as Form of Healing” funded by the Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA) where she was a consultant for an earlier and similar engagement. She facilitated the coming out of the story narratives from eight participants, most of whom are youth with stories of violence and survival. She was inspired to write the article “Out of the Shadows”, which became an online hit, with several online re-postings and even hard copy re-printings that it garnered her spot in an exclusive “Press List of Journalists.” (Out of the shadows: Filipino youth survivors of violence transform the personal into the digital http://cpcabrisbane.org/Kasama/2011/V25n2/OutOfTheShadows.htm) Ava has served as a Research Fellow for the Institute of Human Rights of the University of the Philippines College of Law, was a Research Officer and Women’s Writeshop Facilitator for the UP Center for Women’s Studies, and handled English and Literature courses at Miriam College. She holds B.A. Communication Research and M.A. Women and Development degrees from the University of the Philippines. She was a Fellow for Fiction in English at the 10th Iligan National Writers’ Workshop and 2005 IYAS Creative Writing Workshop, and her stories have appeared in the Philippines Free Press and in the anthology “A Different Voice: Fiction by Young Filipino Writers”, published to commemorate the 50th year anniversary of Philippine PEN. She was also chosen as a delegate to Moscow to honor 25 years of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and Russia. Ava is currently enrolled for her doctoral degree in Applied Cosmic Anthropology at the Asian Social Institute. She creates plant-based meals focused on re-awakening and re-training the senses in order to empower everyone to recognize the connection between one’s plate and the planet, and how food choices have a major impact not only on one’s health but also on the state of the environment and society.