Youth-led peace network Kalinaw Metro Manila and Manila Youth Act Now launched Paskuhang Bakwit, a gift-giving outreach activity for displaced Lumad due to mining and militarization, in the University of the Philippines Manila on November 25. The activity would gather youth to visit Mindanao internal refugees this December.
The activity, organizers said, would concentrate helping the Lumad schools and communities that suffered heightened attacks of militarization since President Rodrigo Duterte’s proclamation of all-out war in February and the Martial Law in Mindanao in May.
According to the organizers, the “paskuhan has been an annual gift-giving program to assist countrymen in need in time for the usually joyous season.”
“Despite tradition, many of our countrymen cannot really share the merriment of the season with what they suffer for the rest of the year or for many years of their lives,” Kalinaw Metro Manila convener Patricia Cierva said.
The activity was founded in 2009 and was held in urban poor communities. In 2013, the said program went to typhoon Yolanda-affected and less-served communities in Eastern Visayas.
“The project’s major thrust is the psychosocial intervention program for children in rehabilitation centers and refugee camps. It also includes gift-giving, art therapy, storytelling, and cultural exchange,” said Cierva.
Leaders opened a symbolic Christmas gift box to portray the present for the Lumad children in Mindanao this coming Yuletide season.
“This Christmas season, our gift for the Lumad communities is not only relief packages, but also our solidarity with their struggle for land, life, and peace,” she said.
Delegates would leave Manila on December 16 to reach 6,000 families from Caraga, Southern Mindanao Region and SOCKSARGENDS until December 21.
