WeDpro, Inc. Empowering women, youth, and their communities

Member, Board of Directors

Ms. Marcelo has worked in the field of reproductive health, gender and development for more than 30 years as evaluator, researcher, trainer, and program manager.

She took up Mass Communication at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, but found herself applying this knowledge in a different field. She has worked with the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines, the Population Center Foundation, and the Institute for Social Studies and Action (ISSA). While with ISSA, she helped organize various women's networks, either as a co-founding member or initiator of the network, such as WomanHealth-Phils, Alliance for Women's Health, WEDPRO, Kalakasan, and Marching for Life. And when she returned from abroad in 1999 she helped organize Coop INSIGHT and 3RG-Phils/DEW, Inc. and joined ACHIEVE.

After 10 years of working in the women's health movement, in 1993 Reena decided to expand her horizon and worked with the International Planned Parenthood Federation-ESEAOR (IPPF-ESEAOR) in Malaysia as its Women and Youth Development Officer; and with the Ford Foundation in New York City, as a Program Officer of its Human Development and Reproductive Health Unit. Upon her return in late 1999 she did and continues to do consultancy for local and international organizations in the fields of health, gender and development, and remains a staunch supporter and advocate of sexual and reproductive health and rights for women, men, and young people. As part of her commitment to this cause she is working with the Reproductive Rights Resource Group-Philippines as its current Chairperson and DEW,Inc as its president. Her commitment to gender and development is carried out through WEDPRO, ACHIEVE, ISSA, WHCF and other consultancy work.

Her work, both here and abroad, involves various sectors, ethnicities, cultures, and nationalities; and facilitates the identification of common interests, goals, complementing differences and synergies to form empowering networks and alliances that span regions and countries.

Reena, as her friends call her, is a mother, a grandmother, a feminist, a firm believer of authentic empowerment and a Pranic Healer.