EmpowerQueer
EmpowerQueer is your all-in-one LGBTQIA+ support hub. Whether you’re searching for queer mental health services, legal help, safe spaces, livelihood support, or local LGBTQIA+ events—this is where connection starts.
01
Access trusted support and opportunities in one safe space—from mental health services, queer-safe care, shelters, HIV and legal assistance, to learning resources, trainings, and livelihood opportunities.
EmpowerQueer connects you to verified, community-grounded tools that support your wellbeing, growth, and everyday life.
02
Explore workshops, guides, and learning modules built for LGBTQIA+ individuals and allies.
From understanding your rights, to mental health literacy, livelihood skills, and SOGIESC education — we make learning accessible, empowering, and affirming for all queer journeys.
03
Find events, community groups, advocacy circles, and volunteer opportunities that help you grow your network.
Whether you’re looking to collaborate, join a support group, or attend inclusive events — EmpowerQueer creates a space where connections become community.
Kopisodes
Listen in as we unpack real experiences, spark needed conversations, and celebrate the courage of youth who choose to lead, uplift, and inspire. Sip with us, learn with us, grow with us.
Kopisodes is the flagship podcast and video advocacy platform of Wagayway Equality Inc., created to amplify LGBTQIA+ voices, community stories, and rights-based conversations that inspire healing, solidarity, and collective action. Through relaxed, coffee-style conversations and creative video content, Kopisodes makes advocacy accessible, relatable, and deeply human.
Events, Trainings & Advocacy Workshops Near You
The EmpowerQueer Hub is an innovation born from the Wagayway EmpowerQueer Project, a community-led initiative funded by the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund and managed by Humanis.
Created to respond to the real needs of LGBTQIA+ individuals in Batangas and CALABARZON, this online platform serves as:
Wagayway Equality, Community of Volunteers, Inc. is a grassroots LGBTQIA+ human rights and community development organization based in Batangas.
Founded in 2018, Wagayway Equality champions:
From street-level organizing to city-wide partnerships, Wagayway Equality continues to shape a future where every person can live with pride, dignity, and equality.
The EmpowerQueer Hub and the wider Wagayway Equality movement are led by Aivan Castillo Alvarez, a long-time LGBTQIA+ advocate, development worker, and community organizer.
Aivan’s work focuses on:
Events, Trainings & Advocacy Workshops Near You
Stay informed and get involved with events that center LGBTQIA+ voices, needs, and experiences. From workshops to story nights and advocacy sessions, each gathering is built to connect, educate, and empower—one moment at a time.
Built by the Community, for the Community
The EmpowerQueer Community Resource Hub is more than a directory—it’s a shared space where LGBTQIA+ individuals, advocates, groups, and allies can co-create events, trainings, and collaborative projects that uplift our community.
Whether you’re organizing a workshop, launching a support circle, hosting a Pride event, or looking for partners to strengthen your advocacy, this hub offers a safe and inclusive environment to connect, share, and build together.
Independent from any single organization, EmpowerQueer thrives on collaboration, transparency, and community leadership. Here, every posted event, training, partnership request, or shared experience becomes part of a growing network of care shaped by the people it serves.
This is where collective growth begins.
This is where healing, learning, and collaboration meet.
Learn more, change to collaborate now:
01
Your Central LGBTQIA+ Community Resource Hub
02
Learning Space for Skills, Rights & Personal Growth
Explore workshops, guides, and learning modules built for LGBTQIA+ individuals and allies.
From understanding your rights, to mental health literacy, livelihood skills, and SOGIESC education — we make learning accessible, empowering, and affirming for all queer journeys.
03
Networking & Collaboration for LGBTQIA+ Communities
Your voice belongs here—share, connect, and help shape a stronger community.
Founder, Wagayway Equality & EmpowerQueer Hub
When we started Wagayway Equality, it wasn’t built from abundance—
it was built from urgency.
From stories of discrimination that were never reported.
From young LGBTQIA+ people who had nowhere safe to turn.
From community members who walked alone with their fears, questions, and pain.
From the quiet truth we witnessed every day:
our people deserved more than the silence they were left with.
Wagayway began as a volunteer movement, fueled by the belief that even without resources, we could create spaces of dignity, care, and equality. Over the years, we saw firsthand the gaps that LGBTQIA+ Filipinos face—limited access to queer-affirming mental health care, lack of legal support, unsafe homes, economic vulnerability, and the constant struggle of finding places where they can simply exist without fear.
These realities are what gave birth to the EmpowerQueer Project. With support from the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund through Humanis, we built programs that listened deeply, responded compassionately, and uplifted community strength. From those programs came a realization:
Our community needed one more thing—a permanent, accessible, and trustworthy online home.
A place where:
And so, the EmpowerQueer Hub was created.
Not just as a website, but as a continuation of everything Wagayway has stood for since day one:
service, courage, and community-led action.
This hub is inspired by every person who asked for help, every volunteer who showed up, every partner who believed, and every LGBTQIA+ individual who deserved better—and still does.
As we grow, this platform will evolve with you.
Because EmpowerQueer is not mine alone;
it belongs to the community it serves.
On behalf of Wagayway Equality and everyone who made this possible,
I welcome you—with pride, hope, and unwavering purpose.
Padayon. The fight continues, and so does our love for one another.
— Aivan Castillo Alvarez /
aivan.c.alvarez@gmail.com / 09177050413 / https://www.linkedin.com/in/aivanalvarez
— Aivan Alvarez
Founder, EmpowerQueer
We are grateful to our awesome sponsors. Thank you!
Every LGBTQIA+ action at EmpowerQueer Hub starts with community
We believe that everything we build is a living response to inequality, exclusion, and invisibility. Every tool we offer, every story we uplift, and every event we host is designed to foster belonging, healing, and empowerment.
We stand with the LGBTQIA+ community by creating accessible, people-first spaces—both online and offline—that spark real change in emotional, mental, and social well-being.
