Likhang Puso
The Visit to Mindoro
Representative volunteers from the Likhang Puso team visited the Hanunuo-Mangyan community in Oriental Mindoro last May 13-14 2022. From this trip, we were grateful for the opportunity to experience our beneficiary community's vibrant culture and livelihood firsthand. Take a look at what we did!
1. LGU Visit
On May 13, the LP team started off the trip to Mindoro with a courtesy visit to the municipal office of Bulalacao. With the plans discussed during this meeting, the LP team looks forward to working with the local government on Likhang Puso’s projects for the students of Gatol Mangyan National High School.
A massive thank you to Mr. Gideon Abuel, Municipal Administrator of LGU-Bulalacao for warmly welcoming the representatives of Likhang Puso.
2. Community Interviews
Following Likhang Puso's visit to the LGU of Bulalacao, the team visited Gatol Mangyan High School where thorough interviews were conducted as part of the investigation step of our service process, to properly address actual needs raised by the members of our partner community.
It is important to us that we understand the situation of our partner community from all perspectives including the Mangyan students and their families, as well as the teachers at Gatol Mangyan High School. The conversations that came about from this visit ultimately helped the LP team gain a better understanding of the various challenges being faced by the Hanunuo Mangyan community at Gatol.
Several issues were tackled in our conversations with the community such as the school's experience with modular distance learning, the challenges to preserving their indigenous cultural and artistic practices, as well as obstacles to the livelihood of the Hanunuo Mangyan.
"We learned so much about how the community believes LP can help them with these issues and with the new information gained from these conversations, we definitely look forward to developing our projects with and for the community."
- Megan Lim, Head of Likhang Puso
On her experience interviewing the Hanunuo people, Megan also remarks, "Having face-to-face conversations with the community not only allows us to connect with them, but more importantly, it furthers Likhang Puso's goal to let indigenous voices be heard (as initiated by our Unheard project)."