Becky Torres & Marizel Arambulo meet up with Rawmags founder & publisher Rachel Hansen

PHILIPPINES A meet up with Rawmags founder & publisher Rachel Hansen

Text by Rebecca Torres Images by Marizel Arambulo

Where do you treat a balikbayan like Rachel Hansen, founder, publisher and first editor-in-chief of Roots & Wings (Rawmags) who came all the way from Sweden for a visit here in the Philippines?

It was a rainy last Saturday of July when Marizel Arambulo and I, volunteer Social Entrepreneurship Team of Rawmags, met Rachel for the first time in person. Rachel is one of the sponsors of Rawmags Social Entrepreneurship Projects, who generously provided financial support for the rehabilitation of typhoon victims in Siargao and the funding of the education of high school students from indigenous tribes in the Laura Vicuña Training Center in Puerto Princesa, Palawan.

The homey Fely J’s Kitchen,* a Filipino Restaurant in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig Metro Manila, was our meeting place over lunch. We savoured crispy swahe (shrimps) for appetizer and heaping hot sinigang na boneless bangus (milkfish) with nontraditional souring agent of green almost ripe bayabas (guavas), hearty seafood kare kare with bagoong and rice topped with dilis (dried fish) aptly called ‘Diliscious Rice’ for our main dishes.

Rachel shared how Roots & Wings started in 2009,

with her youngest daughter, Jenny, then 18 year old Communications student at the University of Stockholm. The mother and daughter tandem conceptualized a Filipino magazine covering what Filipinos in Europe (Euro-Filipinos) would be interested to know about the culture, people and places in the Philippines, Filipino events and L-R: Roots & Wings Rachel Hansen, Becky Torres and Marizel Arambulo experiences in Europe. The first issue of Roots & Wings featured the Blanco family headed by Jose “Pitok” Blanco, modern and contemporary artist known for his folk art, Philippine regional scene painting from Angono, Rizal and Scott Tuason, an award winning underwater photographer. Almost every year prior to the pandemic in 2020, Rachel visited the Philippines, at times staying as long as six (6) months. She has been involved in outreach programs in the Philippines, such as the medical missions of Lingkod Timog (Serving the South) in Davao, Compostela Valley and Tawi Tawi. She also lent support for the Home for Girls in Palayan City, Nueva Ecija; Bahay Tuluyan in Malate, Manila and Bahay Kanlungan in Quezon City. After ten (10) years of publishing the bimonthly Roots and Wings magazine, the editorship of the Filipino-European online magazine was turned over in 2019 to Elizabeth (Betsy) von Atzigen. Rachel in turn asked Marizel and myself how