During 2022, Samdhana made progress in various fields as part of the ICONIQ Project. This initiative sets out to tackle a range of issues, including climate justice, gender equality and poverty alleviation. By working with partners, across sectors and with a multidisciplinary approach, the Project is making a difference to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) in Southeast Asia.

It’s damgo In Bisaya or Cebuano and damugu among the Higaonon and Talaandig. Both words mean the same thing -- dream. It’s also the name that the Lumad weavers of Barangay San Rafael in Talakag town in Bukidnon gave themselves – Damugu Weavers Association.

Weaving, or paglala, among the islands’ native inhabitants dates as far back as the 13th century. Normally, if not exclusively done by women, the craft served a cultural purpose as the indigenous peoples’ link to the spirits whom they would invoke for protection and good health.

To borrow a popular quote of Lucy Larcom, ‘(S)he who plants a tree, plants a hope.’ The Higaonon community of Sitio Panlablaba, Awang in the Dulangan Unified Ancestral Domain (DUAD) is on its third year of re-planting the bare hills in their area. Under the leadership of the Datu Macalamag Marcus Nabatlao, Sr., and the participation of the  youth and women, they had successfully established their nursery even at the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020, and have continued to grow seedlings for re-planting. 
 

Parallel to the struggle of the Indigenous People in Southern Bukidnon to assert their rights to self-governance and to their ancestral territories is also the day-to-day struggle of the memeritan to tend to household chores, send their kids to school and to ensure that food is available for their families, these among others.

It may well be said that for the Higaonon in Dulangan Ancestral Domain in Misamis Oriental and the Calamian Tagbanwa in Coron town in Palawan, culture embraces the way they provide food for themselves. All they needed to do was grow their own crops or pick edible plants that grow freely in their surroundings, hunt in the forests and fish in the sea and rivers.

The number of trees in the Panlablaba area is decreasing due to chromite mining. This activity damaging the community water system.

For this reason, Panaghiusa sa mga Higaonon sa Awang (PAHINA) conducted tree planting activity. This activity aims to bring back the forests that were destroyed due to chromite mining in the area some decades ago.

In 2021, the Philippines was identified as the deadliest country in Asia and 3rd in the world for environmental defenders, with women facing unique vulnerabilities and even graver threats. Women bear the burdens of environmental destruction when their homes and livelihoods, their sources of clean water, food and medicine are gravely affected or lost.