Honourary Mention To Our FCAN Ambassadors
Justin Nikolai Fetalvero,
2024 FCAN Cultural Ambassador
FCAN congratulates Justin Nikolai Fetalvero as our newly appointed 2024 Cultural Ambassador!
He will officially take over the portfolio from the 2023 FCAN Cultural Ambassador, Kenneth Lagmay.
Kenneth Lagmay,
2023 FCAN Cultural Ambassador
Ethan Zamora, 2022 FCAN Cultural Ambassador
As the Filipino-Canadian Association of Niagara (FCAN) ambassador since 2020, it has been an honour to be your ambassador up until now. It is quite unfortunate that I was not able to participate in any of the open houses or attend multicultural events that were planned for my campaign. My experience as the ambassador is not exactly what I had pictured. The pandemic as it did to my campaign in 2020, had affected the entire FCAN’s regular business. The joy I had to be ambassador were gone upon hearing the news of numerous cancellations. As ambassador, it was my job to spread our beautiful culture to other organizations. While the pandemic halted my progress, it did not stop me from spreading our culture to others. As a post secondary student at McMaster University, I still found myself looking to integrate myself with the Filipino culture. I have joined a club called FMSA, the Filipino McMaster Student Association, where I am now placed at an Associate position. Joining this club allowed me to remember all the sentiments I had when I was in FCAN. As a first generation Filipino Canadian, my knowledge was quite limited in respect to the role as a cultural ambassador. However, the joys I had other children my age and learning more about Filipino cmeetingulture really made me put into perspective on how beautiful our culture is. FCAN and FMSA have taught me to truly embrace and appreciate our Filipino culture. FCAN had allowed me to learn and practice traditions that my parents performed as children. Our beloved tradition dance, Tinikling, has always been  something that felt natural to me, something that I want to perform for others and now I have the chance to perform and teach this dance to McMaster students. While my term as ambassador was not ideal, this role had taught me to truly appreciate who I am as a Filipino. For that, I truly want to thank the FCAN community for their support and kind gestures. For the youth, may it be a small role or large role, I ask you to join any Filipino community. Stay involved with your culture, as you never know when you’ll get a 100-fold return. About the Author: Ethan Zamora (he/him) is an Engineering Physics & Society Student in his third academic year at McMaster University. In his free time, Ethan likes to practice new hobbies and refine his musical interests such as singing, learning new instruments and song covering.