Mabuhay District Inc. had its annual general meeting on Tuesday, June 16, during the third week of what has been Filipino Heritage Month in Manitoba since 2021.
The meeting took place at Charlee’s Restaurant and Lounge on Stadacona Street. Members filled the restaurant as waitresses served halo-halo, tocino burgers and other Filipino dishes.
Mabuhay District Inc. is a non-profit corporation founded in June 2024 that aims to create a dedicated community space for Winnipeg’s Filipino-Canadian population.
According to its website, Mabuhay District Inc. exists to create a “place for celebrating and promoting Filipino-Canadian culture, as well as supporting economic and creative endeavours.”
Winnipeg has Canada’s largest Filipino population per capita and the second-largest Filipino population in Canada in absolute numbers after Toronto.
Joseph Orobia, the organization’s president, said the idea sprang from the success of Kultivation, an annual Filipino cultural festival that takes place in the fall.
According to Orobia, Allan Pineda, a Filipino-Canadian chef and entrepreneur, came up with the idea of a Filipino district after seeing similar projects in the United States and recognizing the diversity of creative professionals Winnipeg’s Filipino community possessed.
“Mabuhay District is meant to be the physical manifestation of what Kultivation Festival started,” Orobia said.
Orobia said Kultivation created a platform for Filipino-Canadian artists, videographers, producers, graphic designers and other creative professionals who had not always been visible to one another.
“All of a sudden these people who are doing amazing work started to see each other,” Orobia said.
Orobia noted that about 20 years ago, there was a similar initiative to create a Filipino community hub consisting of housing, a museum and a health facility, but the idea never took off.
The Philippine Association of Manitoba, which no longer exists, was behind the idea. At the time, Orobia said, Winnipeg’s Filipino community was not as prominent or professionally diverse as it is now.
“We didn’t have as many Filipino professionals,” Orobia said. “Twenty years ago, if you thought of a Filipino, chances are you would also associate them with being in the healthcare industry.”
Today, he said, the community includes architects, lawyers, chefs, artists, designers and people working across the entertainment industry.
“We’re at this point in our history where we’re starting to realize that our community can do some really positive stuff together,” Orobia said. “But in order for that to happen, there needs to be infrastructure support, both in terms of organizational infrastructure, but also in terms of physical infrastructure.”
Last year, the province announced $900,000 in funding for Mabuhay District Inc., the Philippine Canadian Centre of Manitoba and the Filipino Heritage Council of Manitoba. The funding is to be distributed over three years.
Orobia said Mabuhay District has not yet formally requested its portion of the provincial funding, which is being held in reserve.
At the AGM, Orobia announced that the three organizations are working with the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba to establish a Filipino community endowment fund, with the long-term goal of creating a Filipino Foundation of Manitoba.
The three organizations have agreed that the provincial funding will be used as seed money for the endowment fund.
Orobia told members the endowment could generate about $50,000 a year for scholarships, grants and specialized funding programs.
Jackie Wild, Mabuhay District Inc.’s chair, said the Jewish Foundation’s experience made it a strong partner.
“One thing that’s great about the Jewish Foundation is they do have that ethnocultural lens,” Wild said. “They understand how to navigate and work around community.”
Wild said the partnership will also allow Mabuhay District to benefit from the Jewish Foundation’s charitable status while Mabuhay District works toward obtaining its own.
Orobia said the Jewish community recognizes the Filipino community is at a turning point.
“The Jewish community sort of realizes or recognizes that our community is at a point where their community was 50 years ago,” Orobia said.
Orobia said Mabuhay District would like to learn from other ethnocultural community projects, including the Asper Jewish Community Campus, Chinatown and Little Italy on Corydon Avenue.
He said each offer lessons. Chinatown is currently looking at ways to build itself up, while the Caboto Centre shows both the opportunities and drawbacks of building a cultural centre away from the neighbourhood it is associated with.
The Asper Jewish Community Campus is also a model, Orobia said, though one lesson from that project is the need to plan for future growth.
“One of the challenges they’re facing now is that they ran out of space,” Orobia said. “That’s a lesson for us to maybe look at the bigger, longer picture.”
In 2025, Mabuhay District launched its Building Committee. The organization’s annual report for 2025-2026 states that the committee “will oversee all construction capital projects and associated activities.”
Mabuhay District put out a request for proposals and ultimately chose HTFC Planning and Design to help develop the request for proposals for a feasibility study.
Orobia said Mabuhay District has already collected ideas from members through open houses and an online “Idea Space.” Community suggestions have included seniors housing, a national Filipino-Canadian museum, sports facilities, markets, restaurants, pop-up spaces and a performing arts centre.
During an interview at his office, Orobia pointed to a board covered in community suggestions, many of which have since been added to the online Idea Space.
He said two priorities that could realistically take shape within the next decade are some form of seniors housing and a performing arts centre.
Seniors’ housing is especially needed, Orobia said, but would have to be designed carefully.
Traditionally, he said, many Filipino families have cared for aging parents at home, making seniors housing a sensitive topic in the community. A seniors housing project would need to include community programming and connections to other parts of the district.
“If we were to just start with senior housing, it would fail,” Orobia said. “There has to be some aspect of community living around that.”
Orobia said younger Filipinos in Winnipeg often find themselves caught between two cultures. Some are viewed as not truly Canadian, while others are told they are not truly Filipino, particularly if they are not fluent in Tagalog or another Philippine language.
“They represent this sort of middle ground between the two cultures that hasn’t necessarily been explored, or serviced or supported,” Orobia said.
At the AGM, Wild expressed a similar idea.
“Culture is more than something that we learn,” Wild said. “Culture is something that we get to build.”
“Culture is not just something that’s preserved,” she added. “It’s something we can collectively invest in.”
Orobia said Mabuhay District is intended to reflect Filipino culture, but not to be exclusive to Filipino people.
“This isn’t necessarily a project for just the Filipino community,” Orobia said. “I’d rather look at it as a project by the Filipino community, for everyone.”
In 10 years, Orobia said, he hopes the project will be well beyond the planning stage.
“If the district is a vibrant place where people can live, work and play, then I would be happy with that,” he said.
Orobia said he hopes that, once the district comes to fruition, people from the wider community will come to learn about Filipino culture, arts, food and values.
– Graham McDonald, U Multicultural Journalism and Media Arts Centre