Daren Paul Katigbak is a Registered Nurse, Midwife, and Public Health professional from the Philippines. He used to work with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines – Episcopal Commission on Health Care (CBCP-ECHC), a faith-based organization that works to promote and mainstream gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) including HIV among different Catholic schools, universities, colleges and different dioceses and parishes all over the Philippines. He finished his Master of Science in Public Health (MScPH) at the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Besides NGO work, he also has experience working in the academe, teaching, and conducting research in the field of gender and sexuality. He also has exceptional experiences in advancing and upholding the rights of young people and LGBTIQ+ with outstanding contributions to the cause of gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Daren Paul is also a member and the coordinator of the prestigious ‘Generation Equality Youth Task Force,’ there are only 40 youth members worldwide. The Generation Equality Youth Task Force (formerly Beijing+25 Youth Task Force) was set up to represent young people in all their diversity and intersectionality, to facilitate youth leadership and participation in the upcoming Generation Equality Forum, a civil society–centered, a global gathering for gender equality, to be convened by UN Women and co-hosted by the governments of Mexico and France in 2021. He has a huge track record of driving change in their communities and mobilizing young people for the empowerment of young women and girls all over the world.
Daren Paul is also a former Deputy Chair of the Global Network of Young People Living with HIV (Y+ Global). As the deputy chair, he oversees the Y+ Global strategy and work plan, gives direction to Y+ Global staff, and leads programmatic committees through a transparent process to ensure different communities of young people living with HIV from all regions are represented in Y+ Global decision-making. He has just finished a project that focuses on engaging young people living with HIV locally, regionally, and internationally, provides protections, and creates guidelines for the engagement of young people in activism and advocacy. These guidelines are looking into impacting young people involved in the HIV response through the different Y+ Global country networks in all regions of the world.
