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Our Work

Our primary approach is based on the 'Low-Cost Learning Center' concept: a teacher, a roof, a blackboard, and some school materials for the most marginalized children in the Philippines. Although the concept is relatively simple, nothing comes easy when working with marginalized communities that bear historical traumas.
Trust does not come easily and can be lost without warning. Mutual understanding takes patience, and our teachers must get to know the families of their students if their classrooms are to remain well-attended.

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UN Sustainable Development Goal 4:
the Key to All the Other SDGs

"Education helps to reduce inequalities and to reach gender equality. It also empowers people everywhere to live more healthy and sustainable lives."
 

- United Nations

The Low-Cost Learning Center

We are currently providing approximately 900 children with access to education.

Homemade blackboards, a local teacher, a classroom, and some materials make the difference at our 16 learning centers.

Over 45,000 children in the autonomous region of Mindanao lack any form of access to education (UNICEF, 2019), and bringing the basics out to their villages in the outer provinces makes an enormous difference. Simply put, the children are now enrolled in education, whereas before they were not.

This concept allows us to offer a very favorable cost-impact ratio for our donors, as our programs are easily scalable and can be rapidly implemented, requiring just a teacher's salary and a building.

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UN Sustainable Development Goal 10: 

the Path to a Dignified Future for All

"Despite the numerous international instruments that proclaim universal rights to education, indigenous peoples do not fully enjoy these rights, and an education gap between indigenous peoples and the rest of the population remains critical, worldwide."
 

-United Nations

Learning on the Outer Margins

Marked in red on the right is Tawi-Tawi, the last province of the Philippines before reaching the border with Malaysia. Out here, life is hard, and it is by far the hardest for the Sama Dilaut/Badjao.

Their reality is one of invisibility, exploitation, and discrimination, having lost their traditional livelihoods long ago.

 

Our staff all speak their native tongue and know their culture well, which is essential for providing education in a culturally sensitive and effective manner. It also allows us to gather information on how these communities are doing, which we may then pass on to the authorities or like-minded NGOs.

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Identification, Please

To become stateless is to live in a form of apartheid, where you are deprived of rights that others can enjoy. Only this apartheid is not based on ideals of racial supremacy, but rather on difficulties with documenting identities in locations that are difficult to access, such as the more remote small island communities in Tawi-Tawi.

As members of the UNHCR-led Civil Society Network on Statelessness, our teachers take careful note of the documentation status of the children registered to their learning center, and assist them in acquiring their civil registry with the local government units.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Basic, Higher, and Technical Education, ICLC will also provide a Learner's Registration Number, a number that has become a requirement for participation in government education.

UN Sustainable Development Goal 17: 

Together We Stand

"Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development"

- Mission Statement of SDG 17

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Advocacy, Awareness and Allies

The problems faced by indigenous peoples are not simple, and they cannot be solved by any one individual, governing body, or NGO.

ICLC has partnered with both local and international organizations for support, promotion and advocacy. We have presented the issues faced by indigenous peoples in Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden.

As local needs are best met with local knowledge, we have partnered with Mindanao State University, combining our efforts to engage indigenous communities through education.

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