“…Neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only GOD Who causes the growth… you are God’s field…” (1 Cor. 3:7; 9b)

SR. RAVENA VALENTINO DOMINGUEZ was born to Mr. Nicanor P. Dominguez, Sr. of Pilar, Bataan and Mrs. Estela Valentino of Laoag, Ilocos, Norte. She saw the light of dawn on the 27^th of June 1965 in Wakas, Pilar, Bataan. She was baptised in December 1966. She is the fourth in the family of six with two daughters and four sons. She is the youngest daughter. Her first years of elementary school were spent in Pilar, Bataan, her hometown and the rest in Balanga, Bataan where they emigrated when she was nine years old. At 11 years old she joined the Legion of Mary of the Cathedral Parish. It was also in Balanga that she completed her high school years at Tomas Del Rosario Academy, a non-sectarian private school. There she was active in her class as the secretary and on graduation had garnered the Leadership Award aside from the academic awards which yearly she would received from her kinder and elementary years until High School. She took and passed the UPCAT in 1982 thus privileging her with a Pangulo Scholarship Program with her initial course of Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Engineering. After flanking Math 1 and Chem 16 she shifted to Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and had the major on Agronomy with the field of specialization on Crop Production and Management with a practicum thesis on Rice and Cereals. After graduation in October 1986, she immediately landed on a job as the Agriculturist (Technical Representative) of the Asiatic Technologies, Inc. which was recommended to her by Ms. Rosalie Quemado, a member of the Archconfraternity of Mary Help of Christians. She stayed with the company for almost two years going to different farms, agricultural companies in order to sell their product BIO-ACT which is a nematicide. She has gone places like Davao, Cebu, Benguet Province where in the latter, she had met the poor families and out-of-school children of indigenous peoples of Ifugao and where she had read the lives of Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello through the booklets lent by Sr. Carmencita Rodriguez, the then Vocation Directress of the Province.

She entered in July 30, 1988 at the Aspirantate in Mary Help of Christians, Canlubang, Laguna even without the permission from her parents. She was brought there by her group of friends who also had supported her materially during her initial years of formation. She taught Mathematics in Grade IV and Social Studies and Physical Education in High School. After a year, she asked to be accepted to the Postulancy and after ten months to become a novice at the Novitiate. Only then, did her father came to accept little by little her decision to become a sister. After two years, she asked to be accepted for the first profession in 1992. Her family attended it in Canlubang with much resignation and peace. After which she was assigned in the Provincial House for three years first to assist Sr. Aurora Yosuico who was the commissionera at the Immigration; then as an assistant to the High School Boys (13-16 years old) at the Drop-In Center for Streetchildren, then as In-Charge of the Laura Vicuña Training Center at the 3^rd floor of Don Bosco School Building. During this period, she also was sent to Sta. Isabel College to study CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) during summer, after which she was asked to teach Methodology Course. In 2005, she was transferred to Calapan, Oriental Mindoro to assist the Apostolic Vicariate of Calapan in their Youth Ministry beginnings through parish ministry, campus ministry, radio youth ministry.  In 2007, she was asked to form part of Mangyan Mission as the Human Resource Development Officer (HRDO) and a Youth Formator. In 2008, after having made the perpetual profession, she was sent to Germany for the four-month course on Office and Travel Technology. In 2000, she was transferred to Laura Vicuña Women Development Training Center in Malihao as the Technology Center Directress and as a catechist in Binanlutan High School. In 2002, she was transferred back to Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro to join the sisters in starting the Agriculture Technology Course for the out-of-school youth and the underprivileged at the Mary Help of Christians School Technology Center in Barangay Parang under the project “Paradigm Shift for the Underpriveleged Youth”. In 2005, she was was asked to study a three-year course on Religious Education (Youth Ministry) at the Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences – “Auxilium” in Rome, Italy. In July 2008, she came home and was assigned as full-time Vocation Directress at the community of Pius XII Catholic Center Ladies’ Residence. In April 2009, she was asked to stay at the Provincial House to coordinate the Youth Ministry and the Salesian Youth Movement while still being part of the Vocation Ministry team. In May 2010, she transferred to Don Bosco School to have a first-hand experience of teaching CLE among Grade 9 students while forming part of the SYM Team of the local and all the North Communities.

She would like to be remembered as the daughter of Mary, “VENA di tutte le grazie”, the sister “forever young – with and for the young”, especially the poorest: the streetchildren, the indigenous (especially the Mangyans of Mindoro), the out-of-school, the underprivileged, the farmers and fisherfolks, the migrants, the vocation discerners, those at risk, the teens and youth of dysfunctional families, those undergoing the Alternative Learning System (ALS) and among her co-sisters, “then” and now.

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