Project Report - La Trobe University

Below: children in Tu-u-an, one of the puroks of
Chananaw.
Opposite: the view from the house in which we were
hosted by our friends Agom (Arlene) Dawing and
Gaspar Dawing, which looks out across the village to
some of the houses in Lappi, another purok in
Chananaw. The houses are placed on a steeply
ascending slope, so everyone has a good view from
their porches or balconies.
Indigenizing Education in a Kalinga Public School | 6
In April 2008, a mutual friend introduced us to
Chananaw: Tim Andrews, another Australian. Tim
was studying at Ateneo de Manila University on a
student exchange from La Trobe University. He had
made friends with Chananaw locals (‘Ichananaws’)
by chance while travelling months earlier with a
friend in the Cordilleras. The Ichananaws Tim met
made such an impression on him that he returned
to Chananaw for several more visits. Before leaving
the Philippines at the end of his six-month student
exchange, Tim took Edwin with him to Chananaw
on his final visit. Edwin returned three weeks later
with Maria. At that stage, we had no intention of
working with the Ichananaw tribe, as we were
both busy with our respective commitments in
Manila. But it was the seeds of friendship sown in
those initial visits that later blossomed to bear the
fruit of our five-months’ work.
During our August 2008 visit to Chananaw,
Fargwog (Daniel) Aga-id – friend, tribal elder and
retired school teacher – invited us to stay in
Chananaw for one year to help the Ichananaw
document their ‘life system’ so that they would be
able to pass their cultural heritage on to the tribe’s
future generations. We weren’t able to dedicate a
year, but we offered the first five months of 2009,
after Maria would have completed her work at
Ateneo and Edwin would have completed a year’s
research in Manila. Edwin decided to take a fivemonth
break from his PhD to work on the project.
From the seed of Fargwog’s initial invitation, and
through many conversations with our friends in
Chananaw over cups of sweet coffee, we designed a
five-month project to document the Ichananaw’s
way of life and to develop ‘indigenized’ educational
materials for use in Dananao Elementary School,
their local public school, as the means for passing
cultural heritage to the next generation.