Looking back at 2025 and looking forward to 2026
Savoring Ugnayan's journey so far and coming back to community to nourish each other with nature, food and creativity on February 22
Hello, ka-Ugnayan!
February na, pero happy new year pa rin! (Wala pa namang Chinese New Year.) 😆
It’s been a while since we wrote, and we miss our letters to you. So whether you’re new here or have been here a while, we just wanted to take a short look back while sharing our hopes for 2026.
Plus, an announcement about our first gathering/s for the year at the end! (Save the dates for February 22 and March 14!)
Pag-alala: Remembering
We released our first deck of Ugnayan cards in December 2023.
In 2024, we got busy hosting 21 gatherings and pop-ups to introduce our cards to folks in Manila, Dumaguete, La Union, Baguio, CDO and Cebu, wrote 12 articles for each of our wellbeing themes, and won 2 Good Design Awards in the process — all while tending to our individual freelance practices and personal lives. Medyo napagod kami. 😅
In 2025, we decided to pace ourselves; it was a season of pagbabalik-loob, rooting in intention and making space for creation. From 21 events (mostly self-organized), we pared it down to 4 (mostly as co-hosts with others in our community) — Paghahabi ng Pagbabago, Creating Brave Spaces, Ugnayan at Likhaan and Luto Likha Linang (which introduced our intentions to create a food-themed deck).
We also made the Luto Likha Linang Laban zine (available for free download and distribution)!
And we launched our Bisaya deck!
We also thought we might release our food deck last year, pero binuburo at ini-in-in pa namin sa @hapagugnayan. 😄
Maikling Kasaysayan ng Hapag Ugnayan
Hapag Ugnayan began as the name of an Ugnayan tambayan at Good Food Sundays in March 2024. Each of our gatherings usually has a different name, depending on the theme, but something about that name stuck, even though we didn’t know what to do with it yet.
CONNECTING WITH THE LAND AND FARMERS.
Later that March and throughout the rest of 2024, I began joining friends from Good Food Community on visits to urban poor communities in Payatas, and to peasant organizers-turned-political prisoners at the Correctional Institute for Women in Mandaluyong. These visits reminded me about the importance of our connection with land, food, and those who feed us.COMING BACK TO THE KITCHEN.
In September 2024, we had an improv cooking tambay with a multiverse of badass bitches, and wow, what a chill but meaningful concept? It unlocked something for everyone — whether a seasoned cook, a balikbayan one, or even some who had their own share of fear or trepidation in the kitchen.CELEBRATING LOCAL INGREDIENTS
With a very different flavor profile, we ended 2024 with a Hapag Ugnayan dinner at La Picara featuring ingredients from Good Food Community and other local producers, and food and drinks prepared by chef and Good Food friend Remy Gallo + mixologist and Proudly Promdi peddler Ken Alonso.CULTIVATING CREATIVITY WITH FOOD.
In December 2024, we were awarded a Connections Through Cultures grant by the British Council, to carry out Hapag Ugnayan Potlucks in 2025. This project enabled women creatives from the Philippines and the UK to connect with women farmers in our respective countries, be inspired by their foodways, co-create art and spaces to reconnect with land, food and each other, and celebrate with each other at Luto Likha Linang in October 2025.
Truly, food has been a great connector; a key ingredient in these shared spaces. And we often wondered:
What conversations can bring joy, meaning and solidarity around food?
What questions might connect people more meaningfully with food and each other?
What questions can open up new perspectives and possibilities about good, clean and fair food systems?
How might we use our platforms, spaces and community to spark humble revolutions in the kitchen and the dinner table?
We’ll continue to chew on these questions this year.
***
With all that happened in 2025, we’d been thinking about how to be in greater solidarity with our kapwa, to honor our connection with each other — from survivors of typhoons and floods, to the urban poor and the farmers that feed us.
So we decided that for each purchase of Tagalog edition Ugnayan Cards from us over the holidays, we would fund the direct sourcing of fresh produce from smallholder farmers to nourish 1 family in Payatas.
On top of that, we invited buyers to pledge their solidarity to one of four organizations / initiatives, and we would match their pledges up to P300.
For transparency, we share the pledges raised below.
While the amount we raised is modest, we believe our collective solidarity matters. We also believe that solidarity can be in financial pledges, but also, in pledges of time, energy, and choices towards a more connected and maginhawa world for all. We hope to keep doing what we can.
Pananabik: Longing
In 2026, we want to co-create more spaces to connect with you again — and allow us to season, cook, and eventually, sample our new deck with you. 😄
There was so much joy and meaning in our Luto Likha Linang gathering last October, and we really hope to co-create open, snack-sized sequels to that this year by co-hosting @hapagugnayan potlucks of food and creativity, starting this February.
Latag on February 22
A potluck carries with it the spirit of collective care and co-creation. It relieves the hosts of the sole responsibility of organizing a gathering, and more importantly, creates a space for everyone to bring more of themselves into community.
So with that, we invite you to hang out with us, Jen Horn / @pagbubuo and @mabidavid, for an afternoon of sharing merienda, stories and writing inspired by food, with journaling and discussion prompts from @ugnayancards.
As a potluck of food and creativity, you can bring:
A snack that you like or that says something about you
A piece of writing or art related to food (whether your own or otherwise)
Writing materials (to participate in a short journaling or writing practice)
This gathering is offered for free, but if you’d like to help us share nourishing food and produce with peasant organizers-turned-political prisoners that we visit at the Correctional Institute of Women (CIW) in Mandaluyong, you may contribute any amount when you RSVP.
Exact location will be shared upon completion of the Latag RSVP form.
Tahi on March 14
We’re brewing a gathering that picks up on the textile project we started during Luto Likha Linang. Join us and @hiwagahands for an afternoon of sewing food-inspired things onto our collaborative table cloth
We’ll be gathering in a space for malayang paglikha at the Common Room Mess Studio in Atrium Makati.
We’ll be sharing more details by mid-February, but in the meantime, RSVP here!
Nourish and nurture
We feel like we’ve started something good with our solidarity pledges with purchases of Ugnayan Cards last year.
We intend to continue feeding our solidarity and giving you opportunities to do the same and more when you check out via ugnayancards.com.
Sana nabusog ang inyong puso at diwa sa liham na to.
At sana magkita tayo sa Latag at Tahi!
Kitakits,
Jen Horn | @pagbubuo