Preparing the way for the Bajaus

CEBU, Philippines - “We are hoping that even if RAFI and the Presentation Sisters are no longer here, we will be able to stand and be ready as a community,” day care teacher Venerva J. Amil, one of the Bajaus whom Sister Evelyn Flanagan touched in her almost 30 years of working with and helping the tribe, said.

Sister Evelyn is an Irish missionary of the Presentation Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ireland. The Presentation Sisters promotes the right and dignity of those who are poor, through a variety of works including education, pastoral work, health care, catechetic and faith development.

Her first encounter with the Bajaus was to help a two-year-old Bajau kid that had a cyst twice the size of his head.

“So I told the mother that we will bring him to the hospital. She only understood the word ‘doctor’ since she cannot understand English or Cebuano. She caught me by the arm, packed up, and off we went,” she shared.

Sister Evelyn said that after that incident, she kept on going back to the community. The tribal chieftain came to a point of thinking that she was a spy, but she was able to put his suspicion to rest when she said that she is a missionary and wants to help them.

“He (chieftain) then asked me to educate the people, so I feel that was a mission,” she added.

The Presentation Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ireland with the help of donors have been funding programs for the Bajau community since then.

“We do not have salaries here and the fund is very limited, so we ask our friends for donation,” she said.

“When the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. (RAFI) came, they partnered with us in their livelihood skill areas, formation of the leaders, building of the houses, and education,” Sister Evelyn added.

For her, the project has helped them overcome the problems in the community, pointing out illiteracy as the primary concern among the Bajaus.

“If they do not know their right, they are incapable of finding a better life,” she added.

With the help of volunteer teachers, the Presentation Sisters established the education system in the community, a system that was carefully studied to conform to the culture and practices of the tribe.

Currently, there are four teachers in the community. Three of them are teaching pupils for day care, one is teaching basic education to adults. They are following the Montessori education for the Bajau pupils.

“Our teachers are a very dedicated and passionate group of women,” Sister Evelyn said.

Amil is a Bajau native herself who got married at the age of 14. Even if she got married at young age she continued to pursue her education.

“It came to a point that I decided to stop attending classes, but Sister Evelyn would always remind me why I am studying. She always tells me that the hardships I am undergoing in school will have a very good compensation compared to the hardships a person will encounter if not educated,” Amil added.

Amil finished a degree in Education in the University of Cebu. Right after graduation, without hesitation or doubt, she decided to teach the children in her tribe. She also once dreamt of working in an office like any other graduate but she had discerned that her priority must be her tribe, and that she owes her accomplishments to the tribe.

Sister Evelyn said that the tribe’s language, culture, beliefs, and rituals have been subject to discrimination, but these are what make them a people so they have to be preserved.

“One of our aims is to make them known and promote their unique culture. In doing so, we try to maintain their culture, we do not convert them or such. We let them remain in their culture,” she stressed.

However, Sister Evelyn wish that early marriages in the tribe would be stopped. She said said that once young Bajaus got married, they would not want to pursue further education anymore since they have a family to feed and raise.

She believes, on the other hand, that the tribe’s values on caring for each other in the community should be upheld and cherished.

Sister Evelyn shared with joy the positive change and development in the Bajaus in the past years of helping them.

“Education has improved a lot. There are 127 pupils in elementary, 32 students in high school, and four students in college and that number is being maintained,” she said.

“They have also learned livelihood programs like pearl making, mat weaving, boat making, and now brick making for the quads,” she added.

In January 2011, the Bajau Integrated Area Development Project (BIAD-P) was BIAD-P was established by the Presentation Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary, together RAFI, in partnership with the Cebu City Government and the University of San Carlos-College of Architecture and Fine Arts (USC-CAFA).

BIAD-P is an integrated community development undertaking that aims to utilize the inherent and adapted capabilities of the Bajau community and its leaders. The project seeks to empower the group in pursuing its own developmental agenda and participating in local governance processes.

One of the components of the project is a housing program. It is seen as a springboard to the realization of the project’s aims. The housing design was agreed upon through series of consultation with the Bajau leaders, with the help of the USC-CAFA and USC Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and History, ensuring that it is culturally accepted and further promotes sense of ownership among the Bajaus.

Today the Bajaus are slowly improving their living condition as opportunities for livelihood, health and sanitation, and education are being made accessible to them. Although there is still a lot of work to do, the vision of a dignified and self-sustaining Bajau community is not far from reach with the Bajaus’ potentials and people who work with and have faith in them as a tribe, like Sister Evelyn and the Presentation Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary.