Here are some of the items we make.
Hand Thongs
Foot Thong
Necklaces/Amulets
soil paintings
Friday, January 16, 2009
Dire Husi: Interconnecting Indigenous Young Artisans and Young Urban Fashionistas through Fair Trade
Mike Banos
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
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.
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