This project will provide scholarships for future teachers from various indigenous and ethnic communities in Mindanao, Philippines. The scholars will help support and sustain schools in the most remote communities of Mindanao, where public schools are absent and access to education is almost nil. In turn, they will impact on at least 4,500 indigenous children, their future students in the five years after they graduate, bringing literacy and education direct to the people who need it most.
Mindanao is home to 61% of the 14-17 million indigenous peoples (IPs) of the Philippines, collectively known as Lumad. The Lumad of Mindanao live on ancestral domain rich in resources but are among the poorest of Filipinos. They are victims of discrimination and exploitation, a result of illiteracy and very poor access to education. The public school system reaches students in rural but not remote villages. Lumad children have to walk 3 or even 4 hours a day to reach the nearest public school.
Graduating teachers from the indigenous communities will allow for the establishment of community-supported schools whose teachers are their fellow-lumad. For the past three years (including this school year), CTCSM, graduated over 60 teachers who come from at least 10 ethnic groups of the lumad. All 60 now teaching at least 1,800 scholars of various lumad ethnicities in the most remote and challenging circumstances.
Sending a scholar to a tertiary educational institution is expensive. In the past, CTCSM served as a college scholarship management body, as its tertiary scholars were enrolled in various schools nearby. CTCSM aims to become an accredited tertiary level institution, staffed by committed volunteer college teachers, and sustained by its organic agriculture program. Once accredited, each scholar's cost drastically decrease by at least 50%, increasing its beneficiary scholars in the future.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
