Journeying with Our Partner: An Experience with the Tau-SPARTAN
By Toto Divino, Pathways
As a development worker, I am always fascinated at how local or grassroots non-government organisations operate. Their dictum has always been to maximise work at minimum cost. So for one week in December 2023, I and Hernan, my teammate in the Pathways’ Responsive Innovation Fund (RIF), a grant platform of the Australia-supported Pathways Program, decided to reunite with our partner Tau-SPARTAN[1], and to journey with them to visit their three project sites in the archipelagic province of Tawi-Tawi in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Tau-SPARTAN is a local youth group in Tawi-Tawi that advocates for equitable social development with the participation of young people. It is receiving funding from the Pathways Program to implement a project called Bangka sa Karunungan (roughly translates to “a boat towards knowledge”) that addresses the drop-out problems among young children reporting to schools under high risks posed by salt-water crocodiles. Tau-SPARTAN wants to prove that the drop out problem can be addressed by simply providing the children with boats equipped with safety gears and large enough to ferry them to and from schools without fear of being attacked by large semi-aquatic reptiles.
From the provincial capital Bongao, together with five members of Tau-SPARTAN, Hernan and I motored to Panglima Sugala — a coastal municipality of at least 48,000 people where one of the sites is in Barangay Parangan. Parangan is a village of 2,500 people living on small-scale inland agriculture, fishing, and farming seaweeds. Around 50 children are being ferried to and from schools by the twin-engine boat provided by Australia through the Pathways program.
When we arrived at the village, we were met at its primary school by the children and some of their parents, who were eager to know more about how the benefits of the boats could be maximised. Most of the families here are poor and can’t afford to acquire a large and sturdy boat to withstand a crocodile attack. For most of them, the boat is the only way their children can access education safely. Without this, their children are very likely to miss classes frequently and eventually stay away from school due to safety issues. Hernan and I watched as Vince Durie, the founder and leader of Tau-SPARTAN, facilitated a discussion with the parents to review and confirm the policies for using the boats.
The next day (December 17), we took a wooden-hulled boat the locals call “lansa” to travel to the municipality of Languyan. The lansa was built in Tawi-Tawi and its design, accordingly, has not changed over the years. We waited for an hour for the boat to leave Bongao from what is locally known as “Chinese pier.” Locals said it was in this area that Chinese migrants started their business in the municipality. From inside the boat, I suspected that the lansa was primarily for ferrying cargo as more space was provided for a variety of economic goods than for areas where the passengers could sit and make themselves comfortable. We sailed for six hours to the municipality of Languyan. In the entire trip, I was worried that dozens of gallons of gasoline sailed with us.
The next morning, we sailed to Barangay Basbas. At a one-classroom dilapidated primary school, we sat with some of the 50 listed children beneficiaries and their parents. We learned from them their tales of the barangay’s difficulties in accessing education. Like in Parangan in Panglima Sugala, the parents in Basbas Likud expressed their heartfelt gratitude for providing a boat that ferried their young children to and from the school safely. At the same time, however, they expressed apprehension that the boat’s services would stop after the end of the project. On this, Vince’s team facilitated a discussion on community-driven sustainability, which gave the parents insights on how they could carry out the operation of the boat so their children could continue reporting to the school and going home safely. To support the parents, the barangay chair committed to supporting the sustainability plan. We spent the night in Basbas Likud where there was no electricity and no fresh water. Tired and unwashed, I dozed off thinking about how the parents could manage to prepare their children every morning for school when there was always little fresh water to wash and clean the learners.
On the morning of December 19, we took our final journey by boat to Barangay Himbah of Tandubas. Himbah is a village of 3,000 residents living mostly in houses above the sea water. The only land mass I saw was a rock formation on which a two-classroom primary school stood. There was no electricity or running water. As soon as we arrived, we immediately heard the story of an elderly couple who were attacked and killed by a crocodile two days before our visit. Perhaps the recent crocodile attack was the reason why the parents were triggered to engage the Tau-SPARTAN in a passionate discussion on the need for the boat, which, at the time of our visit, had yet to be launched. In this village, Tau-SPARTAN has profiled another 50 learners as project beneficiaries. Still, the parents wanted more and stressed that they were willing to contribute to the costs for as long as more of their children could go to school safely.
In the afternoon, we sailed using small open boats amidst rain to the town proper of Tandubas, where the Himbah barangay chair, also a woman, provided us accommodation in her ancestral home. After a simple dinner of eggs, spicy noodles, and canned food from Malaysia, we spent most of our nighttime congregating at a nearby consumer store that provided internet services through a mobile Wi-Fi connection.
That was our first Wi-Fi connection since we started our journey. Before I retired on the floor of the house’s receiving area, I thought about the many conveniences people in mainland Mindanao take for granted. If in other towns and cities, children wake up to a good power connection and adequate fresh water supply to prepare them for their usual school appointment, there are many children in remote and isolated communities don’t enjoy these necessities and even take a perilous journey to learn.
These young and talented people, mostly from Bongao, who were with Hernan and me, could have taken safer and more lucrative jobs in Bongao and elsewhere. Yet they chose to be agents of change and to sacrifice some conveniences to serve others. I felt privileged and honored to have journeyed with them.
[1] Tau-Social Peace Advocate of Real Tawi-Tawian Active Networks