Ellyze Francisco

Born and raised in New York City and its surroundings, Ellyze is a community organizer and educator. Her passion lies in policy development, particularly issues like cultural violence, globalization, sustainability, and human rights.

Most recently, Ellyze has served as Secretary-General for grassroots Filipino organization, Anakbayan-Manhattan which has allowed her to practice servant leadership with organization members and the local community. With Anakbayan, she has connected with Filipino students in New York and educators in the Philippines. She collaborated on campaigns such as Save Our Schools and Defend Healthcare Workers, the latter addressing staggering statistics like Filipino-Americans accounting for 4% of the nurses in the U.S. but about 25% of Covid-19 deaths among nurses. Working extensively with people who are directly affected by issues like land-grabbing and labor exploitation has encouraged her to pursue a more impactful position drafting policy at the government or nonprofit level.
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Ellyze’s international experience includes living and working in Spain, Greece and France for four years where she immersed herself in the local culture in a variety of ways, from supporting the Galician Special Olympics, to drafting a sister city proposal for the municipal government in France.

A Masters in Policy Management and learning the tools to communicate and determine who is seen and who isnÕt goes hand-in-hand with her interest in language, culture, and diversity. During her time as a National Urban Fellow, she looks forward to creating culture-centered, bottom-up initiatives for sustainable approaches to globalization and true social change alongside other academics and policymakers in the field. Ellyze received a Bachelor of Arts from CUNY Hunter in Spanish and French in 2014.