Ben Madilynn
Ruffolo’s nomination to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)-China Young Leaders Scholarship Program was endorsed by the Consulate-General of the People’s Republic of China in Cebu.
Ruffolo, a resident of the municipality of Liloan in northern Cebu, is a multi-discipline professional who worked as a journalist in various positions under CDN Digital and Cebu Daily News. She covered business and economics, politics, and lifestyle, and wrote special reports and feature stories as a correspondent and reporter before she became a copy editor and then later, managing editor.
During the early years of her journalism career, she wrote for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, SunStar Cebu, and The Freeman.
She is currently working as an independent journalist covering travel, business and economics, and human interest feature stories.
Ruffolo currently serves as chairperson of the non-profit organization, Basadours Inc., which she co-founded in 2012 with young professionals coming from different fields.
Basadours Inc. organizes community-based storytelling sessions and art workshops in a bid to contribute to literacy development and to spread the love of reading among young learners.
Ruffolo graduated with a degree in Mass Communication from the University of the Philippines Cebu (2007). She earned diplomas in Language and Literacy Education (2016) and Professional Education (2021) from UP Open University and Cebu Technological University, respectively.
She is a licensed professional teacher.
Ruffolo studied Chinese Language and Culture at the Confucius Institute Ateneo De Manila University in 2009 and Fudan University in Shanghai, China in 2010 under the Gokongwei Brothers’ Foundation China Scholarship Program.
At present, she is pursuing graduate studies in Development Communication, Language Teaching, and Literature.
Ruffolo is a multi-awarded journalist, community volunteer, and youth leader having received recognitions from the Globe Media Excellence Awards, University of the Philippines Cebu Alumni Association, Philippine National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency, The Outstanding Students of the Philippines, and the Cebu City Government, to name a few.
Under the Asean-China Young Leaders Program, Ruffolo will take courses and participate in workshops on journalism and communication research design, media technology applications, global news communication, English news writing, communication effectiveness measurement, and searching/using academic resources.
Taking these courses will enable her to work on a research paper on how social media platform Tiktok is being utilized by peer support groups in Cebu to combat online sexual exploitation of children.
As part of this fellowship, she will also be working on a Binisaya’ng Sugbuanon-English-Chinese children’s storybook that will tackle the strong cultural and familial ties between the Philippines and China.
The Asean-China Young Leaders Scholarship Program is an initiative to strengthen educational cooperation and people-to-people ties between China and Asean. (PR)
