For nurse Mary Grace Ocampo, community comes first in everything she does

She is the president of the Filipino Nurses’ Association of Quebec, a nurse at the Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital and a mother of three.

But wearing so many hats doesn’t stop Ocampo from working hard to help someone in need.

“We, Filipinos, even [if] we don’t know a stranger, or a community, we always help them,” she says.

The concept known in Tagalog as bayanihan.

Whether it’s gathering her community through events with her nurses’ association, or simply throwing a party for the nurses in her unit, Ocampo always puts community first.

While she came to Canada as an experienced nurse from the Philippines, she said she felt cold and alone when she arrived — and was told by others that she couldn’t be a nurse here.

But she completed her registered nurse training in Quebec, and now works to help others who were in her position.

To mark Asian Heritage Month, CBC Quebec connected with Asian communities to ask them: How do you carry your cultural heritage, in big ways or small? Learn more about the series here.

 

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