The community of Sitio Tamale, Bongabon Nueva Ecija is composed of several indigenous communities - Bag-o, Kankana-ey, to name a few. Their home is a far-flung area along the slopes of Sierra Madre mountain range in Central Luzon Island, Philippines.

When the youth volunteers of eMpowering Youths Across ASEAN: Cohort Two were given the task of implementing a large on-ground project with Global Peace Foundation, they encountered the challenges of facing different cultures. They came from different ASEAN nations - with different languages, cultures and backgrounds. 

How did they overcome cultural barriers and build successful collaboration? Read the story below to find out more.

Can you tell us more about this project at Sitio Tamale?

To help the community of Sitio Tamale, we organised a workshop with the Global Peace Foundation to teach the residents of Sitio Tamale how to farm organic mushroom. 30 selected Tamale youths were chosen to partake in this workshop. The first workshop that they had to go through was the basics of organic mushroom farming with the farmers. Tamale youths were taught how to use fruiting bags to keep the mushroom moist to keep it growing.  

What activities were you involved in?

We conducted training in the fields of marketing, creatives and finance. During the second workshop, Camille Joyce Lisay, one of the youth volunteers from the Philippines, went to Bongabon to personally perform real-time translation of her co-fellows’ virtual coaching from November 19 to 20, 2021.

On the first day, Alex Lim from Malaysia trained the Tamale youths on the use of business canvas; Nguyen Tan Phuc from Viet Nam taught them how to form partnerships with other stakeholders and Nunitcha Limboonngam from Thailand pre-recorded a tutorial on creative design. Meanwhile, on the second day, Camille from the Philippines coached them on how to market the organic mushrooms, and Kenny Fernando, the Team Leader from Indonesia, invited his colleagues to train the Tamale youths how to financially manage their income.

The third site visit in December 2021 was a turnover of their training center with a mural dedicated to all participating volunteers, along with Vilasai Thammavong from Lao PDR and Ye Myat Thu from Myanmar. Tamale youths were thankful for the training opportunities. We hope this project can help improve not just their livelihood today, but also to create a more sustainable source of income for the generations to come.

Edited by: Adinda Widya Pasugitaningtiyas, Communications Intern