By Dominic I. Sanchez
ISABELA CITY, BASILAN - Twenty-eight college students and out-of-school youth belonging to the Yakan and Sama Bangingi indigenous people (IP) groups pledged, in a simple yet solemn candle-lighting ceremony Friday, (August 1) their commitment to become advocates for climate change resiliency, mitigation and adaptation at the Querexeta Formation Center here after a two-day journalism seminar.
“We, the partakers to this climate change advocacy campaign launch have come to join hands together today with a firm and common intent to move forward as defense forces ready to shield our mother earth and our lives from the serious and immediate dangers of climate change,” they pledged.
The seminar, jointly undertaken by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), Philippine Information Agency (PIA) and the United States Embassy aimed to promote inter-cultural understanding among the IP youth, as well as raise awareness on the looming dangers brought about by climate change, and the need to advocate on mitigating its effects.
“The earth is indeed getting warmer due to man’s destruction of our environment,” emphasized NCIP-IX Regional Director Timuey Woy Lim P. Wong to the youth. He added that while promoting their culture through journalism, they can do more by sharing their knowledge on climate change to their communities, which will affect everyone in the planet.
“Nagbabago na ang Panahon, Panahon na Para Magbago,” a PIA-produced video documentary was shown to the participants to inform them on the causes of climate change, the effects that the phenomenon is slowly but surely manifesting in all parts of the globe, and ways to prepare when disasters strike.
A set of officers for the “I am a Climate Change-Resilient Youth” for Basilan chapter was elected. They are tasked to be community and school-based advocates on climate change adaptation, mitigation and resiliency. To date, a total of 150 youth IPs in the region are already engaged in this movement.
In the recent feature writing workshop, participants were asked to write a piece on climate change. Director Wong earlier pronounced that they will be coming up with a newsletter with the IP youth as contributing writers.
