A video-documentary on the responsibilities exercised by the Mangyans of Mindoro

Produced by the Organization for Training, Research and Development, an organization of social development professionals with advocacy on rural development, the video documentary features the Mangyans of Mindoro. It is titled, “Iraya Mangyans – Responses in the Challenges of the Times”. The Iraya Mangyans is one of several indigenous peoples who originally inhabited the whole island of Mindoro but now have been pushed to the hinterlands due to the influx of settlers from other islands and colonizers. These peoples are struggling to preserve their culture and to maintain their source of livelihood – the forests.

This is a 20-minute documentary that is accompanied by a primer on the Mangyans. Part of the primer is the ten-point principles embodied in the Charter of Human Responsibilities.

The objective of the video is to document how the Iraya Mangyans exercise responsibility in their community, in the environment that sustains their lives and in their cultural traditions. Another objective is to make non-Mangyans, which comprise the majority of the Philippine population, be aware of the life of Iraya Mangyans, and think up ways how they can exercise responsibilities towards Mangyans and other indigenous peoples. This video is also designed to integrate the indigenous people’s experience in community-building in the midst of the onslaught of invasion of settlers in their land, their continued struggle for ancestral lands and how they protect their environment to protect their livelihood.

The video and the primer shall be distributed to private and public high schools. A feedback system shall be devised to monitor the schoolchildren’s reaction to the documentary in relation to the notion of responsibilities.

Project Coordinator is Aleli Bawagan, a professor of Community Development in the University of the Philippines.

http://www.carta-responsabilidades-humanas.net/spip.php?rubrique105