Maria Regina A. Alfonso currently resides in the Washington D.C. Metro Area.She works as an expressive arts therapist at a private clinic, and is pursuing her doctorate in Pastoral Counseling.After graduating from Ateneo de Manila University in 1990, she joined the Jesuit Volunteers Philippines (JVP) and was assigned to the Mindanao region where she taught at XavierUniversity in Cagayan de Oro City.After her JVP year, Gina pursued a career in teaching and completed her M.S. in Education at Fordham University, New York.On a brief sabbatical from her role as Assistant Director at The Learning Child School in Manila, she stumbled upon the Tala-Andig Tribe in Miarayon, Bukidnon, in Mindanao, an area close to where she was assigned as a Jesuit Volunteer. This visit resulted in an invitation by the tribal community elders to partner with them; to start a school for young children there.This unexpected encounter in August of 1998 marked the beginning of Cartwheel Foundation, and its mission to provide access to marginalized cultural communities in the , as well as provide opportunities for professionals from urban areas to connect with their ethnic roots, and engage in the transformative process of sharing their time and talent with the economically marginalized.
Gina’s pursuits, which have integrated her three passions: education, art, and work with the marginalized, have included work at the New York Children’s Museum of the Arts, and with developmentally delayed adults at day treatment centers in New York and Boston. She has also taught at both the elementary and college levels in the , and had a brief stint as Education Manager of the Knowledge Channel in Manila.As founder and working president of Cartwheel Foundation from 1999-2004, she was fully engaged in resource development and advocacy work for indigenous peoples.In 2004, she moved to the to pursue a degree in Expressive Arts Therapy to study the science behind interfacing psychology, education and the arts, and its importance in human development and the promotion of peace.Currently, she is an active member of the Ateneo Alumni of the Metro-D.C. Area, and is engaged in resource development for Cartwheel Foundation abroad.She travels back to her hometown, Manila, once or twice annually.
