CWCF is pleased to welcome Dr. Lucenia Ortiz as its second Board Equity Advisor. Lucenia currently serves as Chair on the Board of Directors of the Multicultural Health Brokers (MCHB) Cooperative since 2020. From her experience as a newcomer from the Philippines in 1994, she developed a passion and commitment to work with culturally diverse communities in creating opportunities to support their advancement in their new homeland. She served for almost a decade as Co-Executive Director of the MCHB Co-op where she was involved in numerous initiatives to promote the health and well being of immigrants and refugees in the city. She is also an intercultural facilitator and coordinates the Co-op’s Journeys Program which offers intercultural learning and education for service providers and organizations. Lucenia holds a PhD in Human Ecology at the University of Alberta with a focus on health equity for ethnocultural populations. Her research: “Multicultural Health Brokering: bridging cultures to achieve equity of access to health” was the first to document the work of cultural brokers in Canada which led to additional research on the cultural brokering practice. Lucenia retired in 2020 from the City of Edmonton as a planner involved in social development initiatives such as the development of multicultural facilities and the Mayor’s Task Force for Poverty Elimination . She also served as Co-Chair of the first Alberta Anti-Racism Advisory Council from 2019-2021 as well as on several Boards in the not-for-profit sector.