The name Joahna Tupas is familiar to me on a personal level as she is the wife of my best friend Ronald Tupas. In Philippine show business, Ronald is Joaqui Tupas who years back played sidekick Bodjie in a horror-comedy TV series titled Midnight DJ.
The couple has relocated here to the United States where Joahna has excelled in the field of education and arts. In 2015, she founded School In A Backpack which specializes in experiential education. For this, along with her success as Special Education Teacher at Whiteriver Unified School District (USD) in Fort Apache, Arizona since 2017, and other related accomplishments, she was included in Marquis Who’s Who publication a few months ago.
As they say, it pours when it rains, so fate led Joahna to be chosen as one of the speakers for the morning show of the upcoming Leadership Experience Tour scheduled in March 2023 at the Michigan State University Education Center. She is the first Filipino to make it on this stage.
“I’m going to talk about ‘Courage 1st,’” she said. “I have tons of stories from experiences, including those we shared together during my time working alongside you.”
She must be talking about stuff she accomplished in the Philippines. Her bachelor’s degree in Multimedia Arts at the De La Salle College of Saint Benilde proved to be a strong ground for her to build her foundation of excellence.
Joahna formed a production company back in Manila, then took various roles for top media companies. She later landed consulting and executive positions for institutions in San Franciso, Australia, and Singapore.
On the art side, she curated art exhibits for a number of Filipino artists and ventured into performance arts as hip-hop dancer, rapper, lyricist, and spoken word act.
She noted, “The cool thing is that School in a Backpack (schINAbp) started in the Philippines in 2015 and now it had been launched in the US. Its current directors are all Filipinos based in the Philippines, USA, and UK and it has a global reach of learners and families.”
Her initiative also paved the way for her inclusion in World Schoolers, a book featuring “innovative parents turning countries into classrooms” to be launched on December 9.
A homeschooling parent, Joahna is on a mission to raise her son Samuel in ways that motivate her to promote joyful learning, traveling, and creating which is the very backbone of schINAbp.
The Leadership Experience Tour is labeled as a premier platform for aspiring speakers to gain access to resources, tools, and services for the goal to succeed. It is a first-rate venue for networking. On top of this event is Shawn Fair, a trained and experienced motivational speaker in the areas of leadership, consultative sales, vision, time mastery, coaching, and business development.
Since its first edition in 1899, Marquis Who’s Who has chronicled the lives of truly accomplished individuals in America. It remains to be an essential biographical source for researchers, journalists, and the like.
That Joahna is on such a revered list and by next year will share her ideas and expertise on an international stage is simply commendable. It’s a blessing to be her family friend.
For tickets to Leadership Experience Tour, go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/leadership-experience-tour-am-michigan-state-university-education-center-tickets-479515412507?aff=JoahnaTupas, or you may check http://www.schoolinabackpack.com.