REGINA - The Regine Mae Di-Version, a local band from Regina, has partnered with ANCOP to help give children around the world access to healthcare, education and socio-cultural-spiritual enhancement.
The band, which first formed in 2022, wanted to express their values of collaboration, community, outreach, empathy and respect within Regina. Eventually, the band got an opportunity to give back to those less fortunate.
Jerome Marcelo, band manager of Regine Mae Di-Version, said the collaboration first started with a connection from a friend.
"Don Morales, [who is] basically the head of ANCOP here [In Regina, is someone] we kind of know and then because I was the manager, because I was thinking, okay, we have to have an opportunity to live these values [of the band], right? Otherwise, it's useless. So we kind of did that, and we're doing this because we wanted to build a community. We wanted to be closer to people. We want to build our friends [in the community] that have the same values."
ANCOP is an organization based in Canada that provides humanitarian relief to several countries around the world, from building homes as part of community development programs to sponsoring a child, providing education, healthcare and socio-cultural-spiritual enhancement for both children and parents.
One of those countries where ANCOP provides relief is the Philippines. All the band members have a Filipino background, and some talked about growing up in the country.
The lead vocalist of the band, Regine Mae Jacinto, talked about her experience in the Philippines. "I lived in a place where there are a lot of unfortunate people that don't have a place to live [and] don't have enough food to eat."
Marcelo, who is also from the Philippines, added, "they [the children of the country] don't have the means to be exposed to good education. There's a lot of children like that in the Philippines [that cannot learn and go on to have successful careers]."
He also pointed out, "studies show [how] really that the way to end poverty is you have to get educated."
In hopes of giving children a chance to get an education, over the next few weeks in the month of Dec., the band will host a live stream event for the , with all the money raised going to ANCOP. The band hopes to raise at least $500 and is already around halfway to its goal.
According to Marcelo, for every $38 raised, one kid can get a month's worth of education, healthcare and socio-cultural-spiritual enhancement. He added raising the $500 target would give one child a full year of access to essential items, which would mean a lot to the band.
By raising money for a good cause, the band wants to set an example in the community so other music professionals follow in their footsteps of aiding children. If the fundraiser is successful, Marcelo can see the band doing more events like this in the near future.
The formation of the band and its future
The idea to start the Regine Mae Di-Version band came after Jacinto, who was a soloist at the time, connected with one of the band members, Ruben Abao. The other members were friends with Abao, and all of them got together to do a jamming day and enjoyed playing together. So, everyone decided to pursue playing as a group.
The name of the band, Regine Mae Di-Version, takes the first two names of Jacinto, where the word Di-Version means a different version of a song. The band's pianist, Buenaflor Rosales, originally came up with the name for the band, which was the Di-Version band. However, since many other bands had a similar name, the group decided to use Jacinto’s name because she’s the lead vocalist and keep the word Di-Version at the end of the groups name.
Over the last two years of playing, the band has solely focused on gigs in Regina. Their biggest gig was performing in front of 500 people as a lead act, which was huge for the band.
One of the challenges they have faced is having the time and effort to practice and perform at gigs. Each member has a job or a family to raise and take care of, restricting their time to focus solely on music. However, their love for playing won’t stop them from growing and expanding their outreach across Saskatchewan, which they plan to do next year.
Marcelo outlined where the band wants to be in the next few years. "The goal in five years is to tour Canada, with 100,000 followers online. There's a monetary goal as well. We would like to, at the same time, while doing it, we want to earn. So the goal is like $5,000 a month, combining everything, like gigs, online presence and all of that merch," said Marcelo.
