Anfang Juni war mal wieder ein Jugendcamp, bei welchem ich eingeladen war zu kommen. Somit war meine erste Aufgabe innerhalb von MPPM der Besuch und die Teilnahme eines Camps bei welchem an die 150 jungen Menschen von verschiedenen philippinischen Jugendvereine erschienen. Die meisten Vereine haben sich Ziele gesteckt, die dem Frieden in Mindanao Beihilfe schaffen; dies in Form Workshops oder Informieren verschiedener Themen wie organischer/oekologischer Landwirtschaft, Vereinigung der Tri-People, Gender und LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual).
Ueber meinen Eindruck dieses Jugendcamps habe ich auf Nachfrage hin einen Artikel geschrieben, der das Jugendcamp kurz beschreibt sowie Gutes und Verbesserungsvorschlaege enthaelt:
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9th of June 2016
1st – 6th of June 2016
About the 9th Mindanao Summer Youth Peace Camp
Misamis Oriental, Philippines
From the 1st until the 6th of June 2016 the philippine youth had a great opportunity to join the 9th Mindanao Summer Youth Peace Camp (MSYPC) in Misamis Oriental, Philippines. This Youth Camp is held every two years to give youth organisations from various parts of Mindanao the possibility to come together, to get to know each other, to gain motivation for further activities and to get some inputs according to different topics regarding peace issues in Mindanao. This is also one reason why this Camp is named “YAPA KAPAYAPAAN – CONTINUING THE 14-YEAR OF INTERGENERATIONAL STRUGGLE FOR PEACE, JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT”. In the Philippine language Tagalog Yapa means Footprint and Kapayapaan means Peace: meaning footprints towards peace.
The formate of the Youth Camp reminded me very much on a german youth camp (which would be without palms and beach but with rain and cooler weather).
The Camp itself provides food and drinks, a structured full day program including visitors of different political active institutions, a preparation team and facilitators who take care of the participants and their offered workshops. The costs for the participation including food and transportation as well as the sleep over (4 nights in tents) are 1700 Pesos for each person which the participants or their organisation have to pay.
To let the youths know about the goal of MSYPC, the facilitators shared about the background and the history of the origin of this camp in the first day. Team Building Activities as well as philippine games (Larong pinoy) let the young people get in touch with each other and aimed to unite them. These activites did not fully reach the youngsters though; they rarely interacted with unknown people from other organisations. According to some participants, a daily reflection may have helped them to unite the young people. Sharing stories, emotions and critics are actions which could have weld the young people together. Regarding to the getting in touch with the religions and the cultures of the tri-people, the cultural nights every evening achieved an understanding among them. The cultural nights were created with traditional dances and music as well as the moderation of one tribe. The first night was led by the migrants, the second night by the Indigenous Peoples and the third by the Bangsamoros. So, that all of the youngster got a glance about the traditions of those three cultures.
The Summer Camp focused not only on cultural understanding but also on different topics according to peace, justice and development issues. Therefore, they offered various workshop, named “Youth Solidarity Spaces” with topics about Gender, Peace and Human Rights, Food Sovereignity and Climate, Cultural and Art, Social Media and Information Sharing. Those spaces were in the same time slot, that’s why the young participants chose one space of their interest every day. Politically the program of the MSYPC was various. The youth had the opportunity to talk to the representative of the new elected president Hon. Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. The young participants critically asked questions and created an open letter “Dear Tatay Digong: An Open Letter from the Tri-people Youth of Mindanao” which will be send directly to the president. With this letter the participants want to make public their agenda and interests, their wishes for the future, their hope for peace in Mindanao, their trust in his words as well as their critical views and expectations of a peaceful leadership of President Rodrigo Duterte. On day 3 one program slot content the performance of two representatives of initiatives in the Philippines regarding updates on various Peace Talks: The legal officer of BTC Atty Lanang Ali, Jr. who is the representative of the revolutionary group MILF (Mindanao Islamic Liberation Front) and Charity Care N. Lavendero who is the secretariat of the panel. She explained some peace issues and how people can organise themselves to be part of the peace process.
Atty Lanang Ali Jr. presented the point of view of the MILF regarding the peace process in Mindanao. Out of their perspective he talked about the history of the two ethnics Bangsamoros and IPs and the reasons of their unequal treatment since colonialism. He also shared about the BBL (Bangsamoro Basic Law) and the agreement and implementing guidelines between the Philippine government and MILF. In the Open Forum right after, it was interesting to observe that only girls asked questions: Which changes will bring the BBL? Is there a chance to implement the BBL with the new elected president? According to federalism in Mindanao, how can peace be implemented here in Mindanao if people are already in war because of BBL?
Because of time issues, there was unfortunately not much chance to keep up a big discussion.
To keep the Summer Camp alive and to maintain the motivation and participation of the organisations, the youth was supposed to select a new set of AKMK Officers who will organize the next MSYPC in year 2018. Therefore the past AKMK Secretariats Ludz Marcelino, Vhong Fenis, RJ Neyra and Aldren Manisan expressed their experiences in the last 14 years of the journey of AKMK to the youth.
All in all it was a good experience to have been part of this camp. As an intern from Germany I got to know the way how youth can be motivated to maintain their activities in the peace process. I also got in touch with different philippine organisations of different provinces/municipalities of Mindanao. I had a glance of the peace movement of the younger Philippine generation, their being, their behaving and their interests. The language barrier didn’t let me understand everything but within the seminars and some translators, cultural performances as well as announcements I got to know them at least a bit. The camp seemed to be very much organized and with concern on actual political and updated inputs. The facing of representatives of the revolutionary group and the government as well as affected people themselves (just like farmers or fishermen) in some spaces made the workshops more exciting and realistic. Standing in front of one member of MILF has more affect to people than listening to what people say about them in the radio or television.
Although I like the concept and the aims of this camp, I could observe some lacks and want to suggest some ideas for improvement. I recognized some contradictions in the learning outputs of workshops and the realization of them, especially of media and environmental issues within the 9th Mindanao Summer Youth Peace Camp. In the Social Media and Information Sharing Space facilitators explained the danger of publishing all personal information in social media like Twitter or Facebook: “be careful with every click you do in the internet”, “people are slaves of media” and “facebook is a waste of time” are some learnings which one participant of this workshop was sharing to me. In the last cultural night although I could recognize one contradiction to these outputs: During the cultural performances, the audience could follow a live stream on an installed Live Wall standing in front. This Wall showed all comments posted in Facebook regarding the Youth Camp. The young people liked it very much and kept on posting their pictures, their emotions and their actions right away. This is an advertisement for the Mindanao Summer Youth Peace Camp on the one side but on the other side it is not realizing the principals of the Media Space. It promotes Facebook and the involving action of taking pictures ready to publish in the internet.
In the Food Sovereignity Space were themes discussed like environ-mental friendly behaving, litter pollution of the earth and of the ocean (too much plastic in the ocean or in the nature), overfishing and dying of corals. To really understand the importance of environmental friendly behaving, the camp can start to act like a good example. Therefore it is important to discuss some rules regarding responsible environmental behaving during the camp. Examples are the waste of plastic, the throw away of rubbish (plastic bags, packaging, plastic bottles, rest of food, etc.) on the ground of the camp. Rubbish belongs into garbage bags. Another suggestion is the waste separation. Buckets which separate paper, plastic and organic waste should lead the youths to think about the garbage they produce and how to separate it; so that rubbish can be recycled. To address the youth and teach them environmental responsibility the young people could be ordered in daily changing cleaning groups to free the campus and the beach of rubbish on the ground. If the different participants of different organisations would build one cleaning group, there would be also the opportunity to higher the chance of interconnection among them.
The camp though has a lot positive impacts. I like the idea of unity, coming together and the possibility for youth movements to get to know other organisations and their different focuses in LBGT, organic agriculture or the unity of the tri-people. They also got in touch with bigger movements like Mindanao Peoples’ Peace Movement what could be interesting for their further engagement and for the support of it. I hope that programs and camps like this will continue and will be (financially and morally) supported by people, organisations, youths and also by the government. It is necessary to have programs which educate young people and motivate them to fight for their rights.
Senja Katharina Bruetting.
senjafilipina. 