President’s Note
We have just completed our third-year as a non-profit in April. We hope you can continue to support our life-saving programs and initiatives that will bring back the healthy forest for the indigenous Aeta tribes. The Aeta people were the first inhabitants of the Philippines; they migrated from Borneo about 30,000 years ago. They lived a nomadic life as hunter gatherers and lived peacefully in the dense forest surrounding Mount Pinatubo in Central Luzon, just north of Manila City. Everything they needed came from the forest. They didn’t use money the way we do; instead, they bartered for the things they needed. They traded fish, wild games, fruits, and vegetables for pots and pans for example. Their lives took a turn for the worse when Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991. The dense forest was destroyed and blanketed with volcanic ash including the topsoil, fisheries, wild animals, rivers, streams, plantations, livestock, and villages. It became uninhabitable and everything that the Aeta people have relied on for thousands of years was gone. The Aeta moved down the mountain to live with the non-indigenous Filipinos. Five years later, they were branded as useless and without a purpose due to their nomadic lifestyle. They were discriminated against because of their African descent and they were outcast socially and marginalized from mainstream society. The government of the Philippines had displaced the Aeta in 128,000 hectares of uninhabitable land, known as ancestral domain, at the foot of Mount Pinatubo. These areas are very remote and far away from the city. There is no infrastructure such as water systems and they are not provided with the necessary tools for survival. However, the Aeta tribe is resilient and have occupied private lands and metropolitan cities as beggars, which had become their cultural norm.
When I met them in April of 2015, I watched many young women carrying their infants and stopping cars in the middle of highways to beg for money while the older children, instead of learning in school, stopped people on the street to beg. Sometimes the people in the cars would throw food at them as if they were animals. The Aeta lived under bridges and spent their lives breathing polluted air and drinking from polluted rivers. Without outside intervention, they are trapped and do not have a way out of their situation. The Aeta people today are the first generation to experience extreme poverty. This poverty will only spread to the next generation if we continue to ignore their dire situation, and the cycle will continue until their population is no longer manageable.
Because of this, I formed the Aeta Tribe Foundation to try to make things right for the Aeta people by returning to humanity and engagement. The Aeta Tribe Foundation is founded on the premise that every indigenous Aeta child should be protected from the second s/he is born until s/he has become self-sufficient and can live well in the 21st century. Along with our fourteen (14) honorary indigenous Aeta members, we are re-building the forest and introducing new resources that will allow the Aeta people to create an economy that will lead them towards self-sufficiency. We have already restored nine broken artesian wells, and we have begun securing and protecting spring waters from potential landslides and monsoon rains. However, some of these water sources are 30 minutes to two hours from the Aeta villages; therefore, we started distributing 5-gallon plastic containers to every family. So far, we had given away 3,734 of the 5-gallon plastic containers and will continue to distribute containers to collect more water for drinking, cooking, and growing food in each family’s home. We provided the villages with basic agricultural tools so that they are able to dig deeper to reach the topsoil and to plant their root crop seeds. They have recently learned that by digging deeper to grow their food, the soil retains more water and the crops have grown much larger and produce more vegetables. Some Aeta have started selling excess produce in the open market, thereby creating employment. Introducing animal husbandry such as water buffaloes for reforestation, cultivating the land, and providing milk for the villages has improved the health of infants and children. The thirteen (13) female water buffaloes we have given away have already changed many lives by producing more babies. In just three years, more bees, butterflies, birds, and fruit bats have returned to the forest. As we continue to rebuild the health of the natural forest systems, eventually the Aeta will have what they had prior to the eruption. They will have food, water, shelter, medicine, health, employment opportunities, and education for future generations.
So far, our greatest accomplishment is seeing the children begin to stay in the villages and go to school to learn, which we feel is the first step on the path to self-sufficiency. Three years ago, we adopted Target Integrated School with 160 students, of which 40% were extremely malnourished. These 40% of students were given food during lunch hours on school days while the other 60% of students watched them eat. Previously, when the Aeta children finished fourth-grade, they would stop going to school and would join their parents in the city to beg for money. We have become their major stakeholder and in 2017 and 2018, the Department of Education (DOE) named the school the most improved school in the entire province of Pampanga. Today, the school has over 400 registered healthy students and the DOE has expanded the school to grade 8. This way the children who have just graduated grade six can remain in school and continue their education. We know wholeheartedly that the students of today will be the generation that will protect the forest and make it a better home for future generations where absolute poverty will be a thing of a past.
We are a volunteer-based non-profit organization. Almost all of our donated funds support our important work of changing many lives. In fact, approximately 20,000 (out of an estimated population of 83,000), Aeta people have already benefited from our services. Our goal is to regularly receive $25,000 in donated funds annually to protect the health of the forest and to bring justice for the Aeta people. We are a small non-profit organization but we are making rapid strides in restoring the natural forest systems that will lead to saving the lives of the once ignored indigenous Aeta tribes.
Please consider donating to allow us to continue our important work for another year. Your support will save many lives, especially those of the Aeta children who have begun down the right path to self-sufficiency. We are a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization and your donation is tax deductible. Our Federal Tax ID is 47-3714375.
Thank you.
Fernando Briosos
President
When I met them in April of 2015, I watched many young women carrying their infants and stopping cars in the middle of highways to beg for money while the older children, instead of learning in school, stopped people on the street to beg. Sometimes the people in the cars would throw food at them as if they were animals. The Aeta lived under bridges and spent their lives breathing polluted air and drinking from polluted rivers. Without outside intervention, they are trapped and do not have a way out of their situation. The Aeta people today are the first generation to experience extreme poverty. This poverty will only spread to the next generation if we continue to ignore their dire situation, and the cycle will continue until their population is no longer manageable.
Because of this, I formed the Aeta Tribe Foundation to try to make things right for the Aeta people by returning to humanity and engagement. The Aeta Tribe Foundation is founded on the premise that every indigenous Aeta child should be protected from the second s/he is born until s/he has become self-sufficient and can live well in the 21st century. Along with our fourteen (14) honorary indigenous Aeta members, we are re-building the forest and introducing new resources that will allow the Aeta people to create an economy that will lead them towards self-sufficiency. We have already restored nine broken artesian wells, and we have begun securing and protecting spring waters from potential landslides and monsoon rains. However, some of these water sources are 30 minutes to two hours from the Aeta villages; therefore, we started distributing 5-gallon plastic containers to every family. So far, we had given away 3,734 of the 5-gallon plastic containers and will continue to distribute containers to collect more water for drinking, cooking, and growing food in each family’s home. We provided the villages with basic agricultural tools so that they are able to dig deeper to reach the topsoil and to plant their root crop seeds. They have recently learned that by digging deeper to grow their food, the soil retains more water and the crops have grown much larger and produce more vegetables. Some Aeta have started selling excess produce in the open market, thereby creating employment. Introducing animal husbandry such as water buffaloes for reforestation, cultivating the land, and providing milk for the villages has improved the health of infants and children. The thirteen (13) female water buffaloes we have given away have already changed many lives by producing more babies. In just three years, more bees, butterflies, birds, and fruit bats have returned to the forest. As we continue to rebuild the health of the natural forest systems, eventually the Aeta will have what they had prior to the eruption. They will have food, water, shelter, medicine, health, employment opportunities, and education for future generations.
So far, our greatest accomplishment is seeing the children begin to stay in the villages and go to school to learn, which we feel is the first step on the path to self-sufficiency. Three years ago, we adopted Target Integrated School with 160 students, of which 40% were extremely malnourished. These 40% of students were given food during lunch hours on school days while the other 60% of students watched them eat. Previously, when the Aeta children finished fourth-grade, they would stop going to school and would join their parents in the city to beg for money. We have become their major stakeholder and in 2017 and 2018, the Department of Education (DOE) named the school the most improved school in the entire province of Pampanga. Today, the school has over 400 registered healthy students and the DOE has expanded the school to grade 8. This way the children who have just graduated grade six can remain in school and continue their education. We know wholeheartedly that the students of today will be the generation that will protect the forest and make it a better home for future generations where absolute poverty will be a thing of a past.
We are a volunteer-based non-profit organization. Almost all of our donated funds support our important work of changing many lives. In fact, approximately 20,000 (out of an estimated population of 83,000), Aeta people have already benefited from our services. Our goal is to regularly receive $25,000 in donated funds annually to protect the health of the forest and to bring justice for the Aeta people. We are a small non-profit organization but we are making rapid strides in restoring the natural forest systems that will lead to saving the lives of the once ignored indigenous Aeta tribes.
Please consider donating to allow us to continue our important work for another year. Your support will save many lives, especially those of the Aeta children who have begun down the right path to self-sufficiency. We are a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization and your donation is tax deductible. Our Federal Tax ID is 47-3714375.
Thank you.
Fernando Briosos
President