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Baby me, with my mama and papa during my baptism.

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Hello everyone! I'm Richard Navarrosa, born and raised in Las Pinas City in Metro Manila. I basically lived 16 years of my life in the bustling city of Manila where I attended my primary and first half of my secondary schools. Growing up, I was that shy kid in school, and I had very few close friends. I'd rather stay at home and play puzzles or street games with my siblings, cousins, and neighbors.

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My family photo, during an "unplanned" reunion of my Lola's siblings reunion.

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I grew up in an extended family. Living with my grandparents has both its pros and cons. There are times when there were misunderstandings between my parents and my grandparents, but overall, I think it was a really nice experience growing up, especially that my father is most of the time away from home due to his job. I have four siblings, and we are really close with each other. As the second eldest child and as the eldest son in our family, I kind of stepped up as one of the guardians of my younger siblings since my father has been working abroad for years now. This influenced me in a way that there's a need for me to be strong and independent, and I think that's one of the main factors why I am what I am today.

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Photos from one of my talks during the Civil Service Commission Visayas Conference.

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After sometime, my family decided to go back to my grandparents' hometown in Southern Leyte. This was one of the major changes in my life, since I was used to living in Manila, my friends are there, basically my whole life was there. Then we suddenly needed to move due to health reasons of my grandparents. I finished my secondary school in Southern Leyte, then moved again to Cebu to take my college degree. I had to change my hometown for the third time, before finally deciding to settle here in Cebu after graduating in college. I have met a lot of people in the process, but I realized that I almost was not able to maintain that relationships I had with my childhood friends since I had to move from one place to another. Right now, I am living away from my family since they had to stay in our province to take care of my grandparents. This made me really independent, and I learned a lot of things on my own. Adulting was not an easy process for me, but I take everyday as a learning experience.

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Providing Psychosocial Processing to children who were survivors of Typhoon Odette in Ubay, Bohol.

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After graduating in college with a degree in Medical Technology and and getting my license months after, I had a chance to work with the Department of Health as a health program coordinator. This allowed me to further enhance my skills in public speaking, program planning and implementation, collaboration with partners, as well as monitoring and evaluation. I have met a lot of people and experienced a lot of new things, and after years working for the DOH, I had an opportunity to work with an international organization in 2019, which is the World Health Organization. This is quite a new and challenging experience for me since I have to work with people from different cultures and backgrounds, and I have to step up my game since almost all the people who I'm working with are high-caliber and are experts in their own field. Things have been working just fine, not until the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020. The WHO needed to recalibrate their strategies. I was assigned in Iloilo City at that time, to assist in the implementation of their COVID-19 strategies in addition to my original work prior to the pandemic. This took a hard-hit on my mental health, especially that time when lockdowns are being implemented and almost everything is uncertain, while I was away from my family. After almost 2 years of working with the WHO, I made a hard decision to not renew my contract with them, decided to go back to Cebu for good, and return to the DOH. Fast forward to now, I am very happy and fulfilled with what I am doing, while taking up postgraduate studies in the background.

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Wearing a King's costume in Gyeongbokgung Palace during my travel in Seoul, South Korea.

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The future is definitely something that I'm looking forward to, but I always see to it that I don't forget to live the life that I have NOW. I take some travels to new places every now and then, if opportunity and resources allow, as part of my "self-care". This made me experience a lot of new things, meet new people, and experience different cultures. I am always hopeful that the future would be very bright for me and for my family, and I always make sure that I don't lose sight of my plans and goals. There might be bumps and challenges along the way, but as long as I have the will, strength, and God with me, nothing's going to be impossible.