Indigenous Communities and local partners gathered in October 2021 to reconnect and update on how they are, after almost two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. We held a series of in-community gatherings with Partners in Northern Mindanao, and culminated with an online meetings together with Partners from other parts of Mindanao. 

The pandemic has greatly affected everyone. For Indigenous Peoples especially, they continue to struggle to secure their ancestral domains. They shared how they bank on their internal strengths to navigate through the pandemic: indigenous knowledge systems and practices, rituals, Indigenous education, and traditional medicines among other ways of coping. Despite the restrictions of movement and gatherings, Indigenous Peoples have found ways to continue on, such as pursuit of agro-ecology based farming and other livelihoods and networking with other NGOs to promote the understanding and assertion of Indigenous Peoples rights. Indigenous peoples face the challenges in the new means of communications and interaction, and especially for the education of the young children. On top of these is the continuing "red-tagging" and harassment of leaders who fight for their lands. They identified strategies such as working on policies and guidelines that greatly affect them (i.e. Free, prior and informed consent/ FPIC; Indigenous Peoples Mandatory Representative; pandemic regulations; etc.), continue engaging relevant government agencies, and strengthening their indigenous political structure and paralegal capacities, in their continuing efforts. This is the first salvo of a series of Partner meetings that Samdhana plans to undertake in the coming months.

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