Dire Husi Initiatives

Dire Husi: The Performance. Next show on 25 September 2010

2010-09-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

We just had an amazing show last night. It's the first time Dire Husi organized our own concert/performance, on a big scale. This was on our Facebook page:

Dire Husi: The Performance
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Dates: 18 & 25 September 2010, 6:00 p.m.

This is a story about youth.
About struggle,
Friendship,
Change.

A story about becoming,
About possibility,
About you, about me.

This is the story in every one of us,
Our story,
The Dire Husi story.

The artisans of Dire Husi worked super hard, conceptualizing the show, practicing, coming up with the amazing pieces. Selling the tickets.

These are young people at their best. They have done an incredible, inspiring and beautiful job. When we see the creative energies present, we can no longer doubt the power of young people.

They performed a total extravaganza, fusing their multiple talents in ethnic music, human beat boxing, stage drawing, poi dancing, human statues, stage musicians and more into one cohesive show, carrying a message of youthdom and change that is powerful.

Do check out the Facebook page of the event for more info. Pictures and video from the first show last night are forthcoming.

What has Dire Husi been up to?

2010-04-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a long time since the last post!

If you have been following our Facebook page, you would already know that in this short 10 months, the Art Haus has been saved thanks to your support, Dire Husi won the regional Ten Accomplished Youth Organizations (TAYO) awards, represented Mindanao youth in a number of regional and national conferences, held a series of night workshops to journey, vision and plan together, workshopped on product development, sold our products at various venues and performed at a number of gigs such as the KAAMULAN FESTIVAL, Sungod tu Kamangga Festival, Salotabo Festival, a Pagadian event, Earth Hour CDO launch and UNLEASHED! Check out our Facebook page for the massive array of photos covering these happenings. The artistic capabilities and enterprising side of our artisans continue to grow, much to delight of everyone here.

We also welcomed several new members into our midst -- Tyrone, Lance, Juvy, Markel and Ian, not to mention our friends from Manila, Mark, Shao and Janice, who stayed with us at the Art Haus thanks to Kuya Vince!

Even as we struggled with rent and bills every month, it didn't dampen our spirits. Despite our limited resources (and with Rhyan still on crutches), Dire Husi pushed on with its commitment to youth and community development, finding creative ways to incorporate service into our lives. We celebrated our birthdays with street kids and by doing workshops with tribal communities in far-flung areas. Dire Husi also made special appearances at events that supported our advocacies, such as the Earth Hour launch and UNLEASHED. UNLEASHED will support 50 children from a community living in a garbage dump area, CDO with back-to-school supplies this June.

We are also LOVING Lance's blog on her crazy life with Dire Husi, and a short indie film, PLAWTA, by a group of Xavier students on Rusty Quintana's street struggles. A group of Dire Husi artisans filming a documentary on another Dire Husi artisan, we just adored the dynamics of that!

With this, Dire Husi continues to journey and grow through all the ups and downs. We are closer than ever, everyone supports each other, and we work through the pains, conflicts and discords with determination and a lot of love. Visit us, jam with us, join us. This is the Dire Husi family, our small community of artisans, where all are welcome!

Dire Husi Initiatives

2009-06-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

WE ARE manobos, talaandigs,umayamnons, higaonons, artisans, musicians, beadworkers,drummers, painters, travelling merchants, sculptors, k'dlong players, flutists, kubing players, backpackers, social entrepreneurs, fair trade advocates, nature lovers....

Established in 2004, Dire Husi is an organization of indigenous and out-of-school young people in Northern Mindanao. Based in Cagayan de Oro City, the group runs a social enterprise that creates and sells indigenous-inspired terracotta accessories, musical instruments, and soil paintings. Dire Husi also performs “enthralling and upbeat" world music that fuses indigenous chants and rhythms with contemporary beats.

Dire Husi believes in Fair Trade. It adheres to the principles of self-help, social equity, and ecological sustainability.

Vision and Mission
A community of self-reliant and socially-responsible young people collectively reaching their full potential through arts, music, and fair trade

Our Goals
1) Establish a social enterprise that can provide us with alternative income while developing our skills and potentials.

2)Enhance our interpersonal, creative, and business capabilities through mentoring, sharing, and collective learning.

3) Inspire and help organize other community-based youth groups by involving them in artistic and enterprising activities.

4) Create channels for interconnection, dialogue and concerted action among young people from diverse class, age, gender, and ethnicity.

we want to soil you up

2009-06-29T04:34:00.000-07:00

Vote for our idea in ideablob

slope jam

2009-06-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

The Campaign

2009-06-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

Our Brand Statement: Indigenous is Hip

2009-06-03T10:31:00.000-07:00

With the help of UP Diliman Community Development 125 (Communications for Development) Students: Paula, Paulo,Eah, Kaye, Chia, Roger and Grace, we were able to put some form to our brand statement.

Dire Husi Initiatives at WOW Pasundayag, Region 10 Fair

2009-06-03T10:25:00.000-07:00

With the help of the Department of Tourism Region 10, Dire Husi will showcase its products at the Wow Pasundayag Region 10 Fair, Intramuros, Clamshell 1 from May 27-June 14. Catch us at Booth 2.

The Dire Husi Initiative

2009-02-14T01:01:00.000-08:00

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Dating company profile
DOWNLOAD FILE

making beautiful things

2009-02-10T03:28:00.000-08:00

some of our products

2009-01-16T10:43:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the items we make.

Hand Thongs

Foot Thong

Necklaces/Amulets

soil paintings

Dire Husi: Interconnecting Indigenous Young Artisans and Young Urban Fashionistas through Fair Trade

2009-01-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

Mike Banos

December 01, 2008

An article published in American Chronicle and Kagay-an.com

A home-grown initiative seeking to link indigenous youth artisans and affluent youth consumers in Manila and Mindanao has been recognized as one of the three winners in the I Am A Changemaker Competition of British Council Philippines.

Rhyan Casiño's Dire Husi: Interconnecting Indigenous Young Artisans and Young Urban Fashionistas through Fair Trade (Intercultural Dialogue) was adjudged the winner for Mindanao following the final phase of the competition last 22 November at The Linden Suites, Ortigas Centre, Pasig City.

Prior to the panel presentation, the top 15 proposals were uploaded on the British Council website for on-line voting from 5-15 November. Based on scores from the preliminary judging and points garnered from online voting, the top three project proponents from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao were selected by a five member judging panel, representing leaders from business, the academe, government and social entrepreneurs based on the panel presentation, the final stage of the competition.

The three finalists representing each region received a PhP 100,000 grant each for the implementation of their projects within a 6-month period. In addition to the prize money, a project management training will be provided to members of the winning organization in order to strengthen their internal capacity to deliver their projects.

I Am A Changemaker was one of the British Council's activities to mark the first ever Global Entrepreneurship Week last 17-23 November .

Casiño's project bested two other finalists from Mindanao: Acting Towards Change ( Intercultural Dialogue/ Environment ) by the Kids for Peace Foundation of Cotabato City and ALEY-NM Living Museum Project (Environment/ Education) by the Association of Locally-Empowered Youth in Northern Mindanao, Initao, Misamis Oriental.

I Am a Changemaker is a project grant competition for school and community-based youth organizations on how development issues and concerns on education, the environment, and/ or intercultural diversity can be addressed through youth leadership and social entrepreneurship.

The British Council defines diversity in terms of its mission to promote positive social change through building trust, increasing understanding, reforming cultural stereotypes/perception, and countering misinformation and prejudice through intercultural dialogue.

I Am a Changemaker sought to encourage the participation of young people in addressing issues and concerns regarding education, environment, and intercultural diversity as proactive citizens and development partners; strengthen the delivery mechanisms of youth-led development projects by providing a 3-day project management workshop and by periodic mentoring; create a sustainable community of young people who can share their experience of implementing community-based projects through entrepreneurship; and establish a functional network of youth organizations that would complement the British Council Philippines on its development initiatives

Project proposals should address issues and concerns on education, environment, and/ or intercultural diversity; espouse youth leadership and social entrepreneurship; and promote a consultative and participatory process to ensure ownership and enhanced sustainability to promote community-based entrepreneurial activities

Casiño's project, "Dire Husi: Interconnecting Indigenous Young Artisans and Young Urban Fashionistas through Fair Trade (Intercultural Dialogue)" was presented by his cottage industry

Dire Husi Crafts and Accessories from Iponan, Cagayan de Oro City .

In his project proposal, Casiño said "Dire" (Visayan for here) "Husi" (Manobo for friend) aims to connect the "affluent and comfortable" young people in urban areas of Mindanao to the "marginalized and disadvantaged" young artisans of Northern Mindanao through a uniquely tangible foundation of youth culture: Fashion Accessories.

"Through necklaces with terracotta clay pendants, amulets with delicately crafted carvings and semi-precious stones, bracelets with indigenous colors and patterns, anklets with coco-shells and cow-bones shaped into elegant forms," Casiño said. "Small, creative products that are hip, but act as a meaningful reminder that young people are making their way out of poverty; that connection and communion are possible; that after all, both marginalized and affluent young people have a friend somewhere."

Fair Trade can make that "interconnection" possible, he stressed.

Casiño noted that indigenous, out-of-school-youth artisans from Northern Mindanao, who moved away from their native domains to search for a better life in the city (Cagayan de Oro), have demonstrated their intrinsic talent and expressed their identities through the creation of indigenous design-inspired necklaces, bracelets, accessories, and amulets. The youth social enterprise created by Casiño with partners from the indigenous youth artisans in 2004 called "Dire Husi" has provided more than 500 young Manobo, Higaonon, Umayamnon, Tigwahanon, and Matigsalug people with alternative sources of income.

"Although their products are artful, unique, and beautifully raw, they find it difficult to sustain their operations because they could not penetrate into a wider, fairer, market: a market where their products/"artworks" can be valued, sold, and priced with dignity," Casiño noted.

Fortunately, the Dire Husi proponents didn't have to look far. They perceived the emerging youth sub-culture characterized by social and environmental awareness, especially among university and college students in urban areas in Mindanao (Cagayan de Oro, Davao, and General Santos City), and Metro Manila, as the 'springboard" for a new hip, socially and environmentally cool buying behavior, a fire starter of a more "evolved" fashion sense.

"And this could only mean one thing for Dire Husi, the emergence of a sustainable, ready-market for their products," Casiño noted.

With the proceeds from their prize money, Casiño said Dire Husi would explore further ways to buff up the business viability of their enterprise, affirm and enhance the "self-actualizing" value of creative expression among young artisans, and attempt to reach the 'untapped' socially conscious youth markets in urban areas, especially in Cagayan De Oro City, and Metro Manila.

Global Entrepreneurship Week: Young people can make things happen

2009-01-16T02:13:00.000-08:00

by Gino de la Paz
Published in Philippine Star, November 29, 2008

Due to a recent succession of awe-inspiring events, change has been a word the world-at-large has been hearing a lot lately. But before you think that this soft-focus hopefulness only envelops the White House, I’d like you to shift your gaze to a few makeovers taking place in our own corner of the Earth.

To mark the first-ever Global Entrepreneurship Week, the British Council in Manila, the UK government’s cultural relations organization, partnered up with the Philippine Youth and Employment Network (PYEN) and the kind folks at Ernst & Young by initiating a forum on social entrepreneurship. Aside from inspiring young people to become conscientious self-starters, the town-hall-meeting-of-sorts also coincided with the announcement of winners for “I Am A Changemaker,” the British Council’s nationwide project grant competition. The opportunity was too good to pass up and I’m not going to lie: It was the most enlightening Saturday afternoon I’ve had in months.

Making it happen

Turning the place into an instant lecture hall, the Ateneo de Manila University’s Harvey Keh, founder of Pathways to Higher Education, put the day’s session into perspective. “According to Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, ‘Education and economic development are related to each other,’” Keh said. Both entertaining and sobering, his presentation threw down the bottom line: that Pinoy youth, through our inherent creativity and caffeine-fueled enthusiasm, can become catalysts for positive change in society. “The key word here is ‘I’. I can be a changemaker,” he concluded. “Why don’t you make it happen?”

Those saddled with a jaded point-of-view would’ve likely dismissed it all as annoying political rhetoric. (And after being pummeled by the same carpe diem-type empowerment — everyone from university professors to the Disney Channel has delivered this message at some point — it doesn’t come as a shock.) So to ground things, a few of Harvey Keh’s ex-students recalled their respective social entrepreneurship success stories.

Feel-good projects

The three winning groups from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao receive their grant from Nannette Mercado, assistant director for programmes, and David Hopkinson, British Council acting country director.

First in front was Mian Alampay, who talked about two feel-good projects: the Bright Kids Learning Center at the Batasan Hills Elementary School (bklc.multiply.com) and Chains for Change at the New Bilibid Prison Community. Some of the social entrepreneurship essentials on her list — or “SE-ssentials,” as she branded them — are a positive attitude and the right mindset. “You can dream big, but you still have to keep your feet on the ground,” she adds, realizing perhaps that sustainability is also something an aspiring mini-mogul should consider.

Next up were Maui Papa and Kat Avandela of Billabag, a line of accessories fashioned from discarded tarpaulins (billabag.multiply.com). They admit that finding materials and funding for their fledgling business was a challenge (“Companies wouldn’t give us their used tarps even if we told them it was for a good cause”), but their persistence is slowly paying off. Most important, the two see Billabag as a collaborative effort; to be fair to the housewives in Payatas who sew their bags, the girls have asked them for their input regarding compensation.

Social networking pedefined

Time finally came to announce the three winning project proponents. Proposal writing is an art form in itself and a five-member panel, representing leaders from business and the academe to government and social entrepreneurs, had to choose one team each from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. These youth groups received P100,000 apiece to turn their awesome ideas into reality over a six-month period.

From Luzon came Bicol University’s Symbiosis, whose GREENPage project wants to “systematize and centralize” the collection of paper waste within the premier educational institution. The community that will benefit from all this is close to home — the 7,000 students that populate the main, east, and west campuses of the university.

Meanwhile, the Visayas region was repped by Project Green University, an initiative proposed by the University of San Carlos Cebu City’s Supreme Student Council. Their environmental endeavor aims to “clear out any renewable garbage waste in and around the university in exchange for usable school and office materials such as pens, paper, photocopy credit, etc.”

Last, Mindanao should be proud of Dire Husi, a project that seeks to “interconnect indigenous youth artisans and young urban fashionistas through fair trade.” If you ask the group from Iponan, Cagayan de Oro City, they’ll tell you that the answer to harmony lies in accessories. Dire Husi will provide young Manobo, Higaonon, Umayamnon, Tigwahanon, and Matigsalug people with a steady source of income as well as a market where their art can be appreciated and sold equitably. It’s win-win all around.

As guests mingled and participants swapped ideas and contact details, it became apparent that despite what has been said repeatedly about Filipino youth and apathy, all is not lost. There are still young people who possess the self-belief not only to think of innovative schemes but to put them into practice. The forum may have drawn to a close but for our generation’s newly-minted entrepreneurs, the challenge of running an economically viable and socially responsible business has definitely just begun.

Changing the world, one child at a time

2009-01-15T00:52:00.000-08:00

by Rachel C. Barawid
(originally published in Manila Bulletin)

A group of reformed youths in Mindanao leave their wasted lives behind to become changemakers in their communities.

Nineteen-year-old Rustie Quintana started living on the streets of Cagayan de Oro City at five. He survived by sniffing rugby, stealing and peddling drugs.

Rhyan Casino, 31, on the other hand, dropped out of school to pursue a gypsy-like lifestyle, going through life with no direction and destination.

High school graduate David Yañez, 20, wanted to continue his studies but could not afford it.

Then one day, the paths of these three outcasts crossed. And they found inspiration, healing, and hope in one another.

Now organized into a group of artisans called Dream Arts Kagay-an, the three and several others like them combine their talents in an arts and crafts business that aims to support themselves and their communities.

Eventually, the group was recognized and awarded a R100,000 grant for their business. Out of more than a hundred aspiring youth groups, Dream Arts was chosen among the top three winners, representing Mindanao in the "I am a Changemaker" project grant competition of the British Council.

WASTED LIVES

Rustie and his older brother ran away from home and grew up on the streets. But at seven, Rustie found himself abandoned when his brother was jailed for stealing food. He was then forced to support himself by taking on odd jobs such as washing cars, selling newspapers, balut and other street food. But it just wasn’t enough, so Rustie began stealing, snatching bags, sniffing rugby and doing drugs.

But he still dreamt of going to school even amid the darkness he was surrounded with.

"Pag abot ko ng nine years old, nagdesisyon ako na gusto ko mag-aral. Noon pa lang may ambisyon na ko. Naiinggit ako pag may nakikita akong mga estudyante,’’ Rustie looks back.

Through local and foreign social workers who spent time reading the Bible to him and other streetkids, Rustie realized that he needed to turn away from his old ways. "Kaya isang araw pumunta ako sa police station. Sabi ko gusto ko mag-aral. Hinatid ako sa Mother Teresa Foundation sa Cagayan de Oro at pinag-aral nila ako. One month lang ako nag kinder. Nakita nila magaling ako kaya naaccelerate ako ng Grade 1, tapos Grade 3, tapos Grade 5 kaagad. Pero nung pag Grade 6 ko nagstop ako kasi wala na yung tumulong," recalls Rustie.