The Handi Project

For young elementary school students in the U.S., there is nothing more exciting than field trips. Right? Well, in some places around the world, students don’t have this opportunity and have never experienced a field trip. Our 170th AWB grantee, The Handi Project, is fixing that in the municipality of Kiangan, Ifugao in the Philippines. Currently, children of the Ifugao indigenous group do not receive any formal education on Ifugao culture as part of their school curriculum. Furthermore, for reasons such as cost and inaccessibility, they have never even been to their local museums or historic landmarks. The concept of The Handi Project is simple: let children enjoy learning about their culture through a day of museum tours and games — at no cost. The team believes in the value of learning about the past, not just to be able to look at what came before, but to connect how the past continually affects the present and the future. The children are the future leaders of the Ifugao society, and deserve the opportunity to learn about their culture.

The field trip itinerary is quite awesome. It includes site visits to the Peace Museum, World War II Shrine, and the Ifugao Museum. Students are given the background of the role of Kiangan in the Second World War, the history and prehistory of their area, and aspects of Ifugao culture which, because of recent changes in society, might not be so familiar to them anymore. In the afternoon, they play a traditional Ifugao game, and participate in different activities related to archaeology, such as pottery reconstruction, skeleton identification and assembly, and cookie excavation!

Our AWB grant will be put towards funding at least 5 more field trips for the different elementary schools in Kiangan, Ifugao. To keep up with this fun initiative, follow The Handi Project on Facebook and Twitter!