DAP Officers 2025-2029

DIAKONIA Region Asia-Pacific (DAP)

Regional President

Deaconess Claribel O. Buenaventura (Philippines) National President, Lupon ng mga Diyakonesa sa Pilipinas President, Diakonia Philippines

Claribel is a dedicated deaconess and Christian educator from the Philippines. She graduated from Harris Memorial College in Manila in 1984 with a specialization in Christian Education. Over the years, she has served in various capacities, including Christian Education Director, Youth and Children Ministry Director, and Church Choir Director. In 2001, she co-founded the Philos Montessori Learning Center, Inc., where she initiated environmental justice programs focused on tree planting, coastal cleanups, and waste management. Under her leadership, thousands of trees have been planted, and children are educated on environmental stewardship. Claribel is also deeply committed to advocacy for women and children, particularly supporting battered women and abandoned children in her community. With a postgraduate specialization in Guidance and Counseling, she provides education and counseling to parents in her school and church. For 35 years, Claribel worked as a preschool teacher and continues to empower women through speaking engagements and training programs. She currently serves as the National President of Lupon ng mga Diyakonesa sa Pilipinas under Ang Iglesia Metodista sa Pilipinas and as the President of Diakonia Philippines, representing four Methodist organizations: UMC, IEMELIF, AIMP, and UCCP. In February 2025, she was appointed President of DAP Region and will assume office after the DWF Assembly in Moshi, Tanzania. Claribel is married to Bishop Manuel O. Buenaventura, National Bishop of Ang Iglesia Metodista sa Pilipinas. They have three grown children.

DIAKONIA Asia Pacific Vice President DAP Second representative to the DWF executive committee

Deacon Venerable Mandy Herriman (Anglican, Australia) Mandy is President of the Australian Anglican Deacons Association (AADA), and Archdeacon to the Household of Deacons. She is serving as a Deacon in the Anglican Parish of Kingsley North in Perth, Western Australia. Mandy has exercised her vocational diaconal calling (lay and ordained) as a paediatric registered nurse, a primary music teacher and as a deacon in her home parish. Currently Mandy is engaged in parish and Diocesan ministry as a deacon as well as working as a Prison Chaplain in Women’s prisons and as an Aged Care Chaplain. Her passion is to exercise her Diaconal ministry with integrity and honesty and to reclaim the deacon’s ministry within the Anglican Church. She strives to model an early church expression of Diaconal ministry and the impact an active deacon in the community can have on the social justice ministry understanding of the established church.