May 5, 2018, Nephtaly Joel B. Botor
May 2-3, 2018 - WIMLER-Dubai, in partnership with the Department of Education Cotabato province and the B/LGU, organized the annual two-day outreach activity in Sitio Blaan, a resettlement community in Kanibong, Tulunan, North Cotabato. Its adopt-a-school project has been forged with Kanibong Indigenous Peoples Elementary School, a school that caters to more than a hundred school children from kindergarten to sixth grade. It assists the school by providing scholarship and by augmenting the school’s other needs through the assistance of migrant workers from the UAE and other countries.
The two-day outreach involved WASH advocacy, storytelling, exploration for scholarship and educational support, dental and medical mission, and a series of focus group discussions with stakeholders-parents, children, leaders.
TUAN (Past)--Stories from the community revealed that almost a couple of decades ago, the people of the sitio were displaced from their original community due to armed conflict and were relocated to the bosom of Barangay Kanibong. Life has been difficult for them as they were uprooted from their homes, lost their livelihood, and struggled to access basic social services including health and education. Children were deprived of the opportunity to go to school and were instead integrated into the work force.
AMDONE (Present)--The mothers who were once children when they first came into the resettlement particularly articulated how different their life before was. Now, while there remains to be a handful of problems that community people face, they noted how the introduction of the access road and the local school have made life easier for them especially their children.
In terms of promoting children's welfare, it is remarkable to glean that there are many individuals inside the community who champion children's education and health--dedicated teachers, concerned parents, solid PTA, and involved BLGU. There are also remarkable champions from the outside--fundraisers, benefactors, and advocates for education and health. WILMER has successfully linked and united these two groups of people. It served as a bridge that connects the community to its potential partners.
FAYAH (Future)--There are certainly concerns that must be addressed at a rather communal level, say for instance the need for a reliable water system or a more sustainable livelihood, that are inextricably linked to the historical and systemic oppression of the lumads of Mindanao and of the indigenous peoples of the Philippines in general. These concerns will prevail unless larger issues--economic, sociopolitical, and cultural--are appropriately dealt with.
Notwithstanding this, the vision of the foundation is clear and its mission is resolute. This makes its initiatives, through its partnership with the school, promising in terms of providing children the opportunity to receive the education they rightfully deserve and in promoting a better quality of life for them.
This school year, six children graduated in elementary and through the auspices of benefactors will hopefully be able to pursue high school. Both parents and their children are looking forward to the next step of the journey.
