NTFP-EP supports grassroots women’s organisations with Dare to Trust-grants

Asosasyon sang Tumandok-Bukidnon sa Banangaray Balicotoc (ATBBB), Philippines

The organisation "Asosasyon sang Tumandok-Bukidnon sa Barangay Balicotoc" (ATBBB, Association of Tumandok-Bukidnon of Balicotoc village) is mainly composed of indigenous Tumandok women in Ilog, Negros Occidental, Philippines. The community has faced several development-related aggressions in the form of immense land conversions of forest areas into agricultural and settlement areas. The community has recognized how detrimental these developments are to the forest and biodiversity, their water table, and the health of their ecosystem. The main livelihood of community members is now linked to livestock, poultry raising, and farming agricultural crops. Before this, the community, and especially the women, partook in handicraft production using natural non-timber materials sourced from their forests. Due to years of denudation and plunder, which threatens their ecosystem, the communities have stopped their craft-making. The resources that the ATBBB hoped to utilize for their Dare to Trust-project development were lemongrass, turmeric and sambong, but the community found these to be ineffective and time consuming. Based on their own judgment of the accessibility and availability of resources, therefore, they decided to move forward with growing, processing and selling what they have at their disposal: coffee. They created a production center for their community based enterprise.

Taing Se Malu, Cambodia

The Taing Se Malu village in Cambodia, home to Jarai indigenous groups, has historically faced a set of threats since the 1960s and struggled to retain their resilience amid multiple crises during the recent decades. Logging concessionaires and mining companies entered the community in the guise of development, but ultimately became an adversary to their beliefs that is woven in the spiritual forest mountains. Today, years later, the community finds themselves more capable of farming and cultivating fruit-bearing trees, such as cashew and root crops (e.g. cassava), collecting non-timber forest products such as bamboo shoots, mushrooms, and wild vegetables. While the women of the community are participating in the livelihood activities of raising livestock, buffalo, poultry and pigs, they are still the ones expected to maintain their domestic life. This shows that the Taing Se Malu village still has ingrained and archaic gender dynamics, such as women being unable to represent themselves, being less informed of managing economic life and being disempowered to step outside of their village. With the Dare to Trust-grant, they were able to explore more about traditional agricultural practices and other livelihood knowledge. The Taing Se Malu organization decided to purchase pigs that can be raised and increased in quantities by the women members of their organization. More importantly, through the grant, they formed a women’s group and a youth group to empower them in their pursuit of a more gender-just community. 

Thean, president of the Jarai women’s group: “The project has been effective in empowering and encouraging us women to be brave and strong. We truly hope this project wouldn’t end. For me I really want to transmit to our youth and women to discuss with each other. We must work together, encourage one another and strengthen our group together.” 

Sharing knowledge with the next generation

The young generation have been recognized by both Taing Se Malu and ATBBB to be entitled with the preservation for their communities knowledge. This is why it is believed that the youth should be capacitated and equipped with adequate knowledge to play a significant role in generational knowledge transfer. Through the video storytelling workshops that were conducted by NTFP-EP Asia, the Taing Se Malu and the ATBBB were able to produce a video for each of their communities. The process of making a storytelling video is a process that yields results not only in the form of having the youth participate, but also in terms of them becoming more well-informed about their own communities. 

Lyn Gie Barato, Youth President Tumandok Women: “We, the youth, work with our elders for our cultural work, and others for our economy, environment and about our rights. We dream that through engaging with other support groups, we are able to protect our ancestral territory, as well as our identity.”