Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth will launch their Indigenous song and ritual music video project on 10/10/10.

On 10/10/10 the Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth Network will use traditional songs of the Limo Tribe from Kalinga, Cordillera in the Philippines to promote Indigenous knowledge in mitigation and adaption practices for climate change.

Why songs? Because the organizers see it as the best way to popularize the knowledge and practices in combating the impacts of climate crisis. On 10/10/10 they will launch a project to create a music video on the effects of climate change and how the Indigenous networks in the region are working to mitigate the negative effects! One of their most famous traditional songs, Sossolay, is a song about how the Limos Tribe takes care of and respect the environment. This song will be in the video – I can’t wait to see it.

After talking with Keidy Transfiguracion, one of the organizers helping with this event, I got a better sense of what type of changes they are seeing because of climate change. The main thing impacting the Limos tribe is that they no longer can predict the weather the way they used to which is having a major impact on the economic cycle and food security. It is important that every member of the society is involved in the solution to climate change, that is why Keidy and her community members are setting out to get creative and make a music video about the serious issues facing the Limo tribe.

Keidy’s full write up:

Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth Network’s “Promoting Indigenous Knowledge and Practices in Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change through Traditional Songs and Music of the Limos Tribe in Kalinga, Cordillera, Philippine” will be an event on October 10, 2010 as we launch this project.

This project is part of a strategic campaign to increase the resiliency of the community to combat the effects of the climate crisis. It is designed to popularize the knowledge and practices towards next steps in combating the impacts of climate crisis.

Climate Change as a global phenomenon affects the remotest indigenous communities dramatically. Some of the most concrete impact of this to the Limos tribe is that they no longer can predict the weather thus affecting the economic cycle. The immediate impact to them now is food insecurity.

The tribe has retained practices keeping biodiversity and sound environmental practices throughout the centuries. Also, traditional music, songs and other forms of oral tradition remain vital in the tribe. Despite MP3s, the tribe’s music, chanting, storytelling (allalim), or declaim (pukaw) persist. These have been proven effective means to convey the messages to generations of the tribe.

We hope to achieve the following:
1. Broadened awareness of the community on climate change and how this affects them concretely;
2. Promote traditional knowledge and practices as alternatives to combat the effects of Climate change;
3. Influence local policies in relation to environmental and economic sustainability; and
4. Reinvigorate positive cultural practices of the community.

We will launch the project on October 10, 2010 in the opening ceremony of seminar-workshop on climate change through samples of the traditional singing known as sossolay. This seminar-workshop aimed to identify its impacts and the indigenous practices and knowledge of climate mitigation and adaptation and sustaining the environment while thriving for economic sufficiency.

As part of the seminar-workshop, we will identify the needs of the production of a music-video such as the indigenous songs and rituals to be recorded and other research related to it. This will be done until November. After all the identification of needs, recording and filming will start on December. Since this will be the start of the harvesting season, we expect that the participants will only be available during the night and on Sundays so the whole process will likely stretch out through the month. In January 2010, editing will pursue and we will be able to conduct the community viewing and get some comments. In February, we will reproduce in dvcd copies, launch the product in a concert-forum and conduct the evaluation with the community. We will be able to accomplish the final report in March.

At the community level, the MALUDA (community organization) is our direct partner to implement the project. This is the organization of men and women in the community whose primary goal is to strengthen traditional knowledge, reinvigorate the cultural values of the tribe, and build economic sufficiency and sustainability. They will be both the direct beneficiaries of the project and will also provide in kind counterpart.