Althea Balmes and Jo SiMalaya Alcampo

Toronto-based artists Althea Balmes and Jo SiMalaya Alcampo founded the Kwentong Bayan Collective (KBC) in 2012. In the Filipino language, “kwentong bayan” is the literal translation of “community stories.” KBC’s artistic mandate is to explore a critical and intersectional approach to community-based art, labour, and education. A major part of KBC’s work is in collaboration with Filipino migrant care workers, who support Canadian families to care for children, elders, and those with complex medical needs. KBC’s comic on the history of the Live-in Caregiver Program was published in the 2016 anthology Drawn to Change: Graphic Histories of Working Class Struggle.