Leila Rispens-Noel
Leila Rispens-Noel is a development worker and social entrepreneur. She co-founded WIMLER Foundation Hong Kong Ltd. (2011) and WIMLER Philippines in 2006. She also founded Xabukid Trading, a social enterprise, in 2018. She works with Filipino migrant workers and the Bagobo-Tagabawa, an indigenous tribe in the Davao del Sur area.
Leila is the author of “Beyond the Bansalan Skies,” a memoir, and co-edited the award-winning anthology “Diaspora Journey: Stories of Philippine Migration in Hong Kong.” 8Letters just published “San Rafael,” her debut novel. Additionally, she writes and contributes non-fiction articles, especially on migration and development.
She was a Senior Advisor for INAFI International, a network of over 300 microfinance institutions in Latin America, Asia, and Africa until 2012. Leila was a former Program Manager at Oxfam Novib in the Netherlands, in charge of the Migration and Development Program. She was a member of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) of the Civil Society Global Forum for Migration and Development in Manila-2008 and in Mauritius-2012. She was also a member of the Steering Committee for the UN High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development and a member of the Migrants Advisory Board (MAB) of the EC-UN Joint Migration and Development Initiative (JMDI).
She completed her undergraduate studies in Commerce, majoring in accounting at the Holy Cross of Davao College in the Philippines. She holds a diploma in Rural and Agricultural Project Planning from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, The Netherlands, and a Master in Migration Studies degree from Miriam College in Manila.
Leila returned to Bansalan, her hometown, after living in the Netherlands for 32 years and in Hong Kong for four years.