“For us this film is a great achievement and something we are truly proud of as it is from end to end written, filmed, and edited by members of our own community. It is students from the Aeta high school who now have the skills to document and share our history and culture and the achievements we make as a people and that ability of being able to tell your own story is truly empowering,” says Ms. Helen Abarra who is one of the leaders in the Aeta organization LAKAS.

For years LAKAS have been fighting for the rights and recognition of the Aeta people who has formerly suffered severe marginalization and harassment followed by poverty and repression.

Together with Education Out Loud partner E-Net, they have won the right to their ancestral lands, gained some level of autonomy rule, and in 2013 implemented alternative education and ultimately established their very own high school built around their own indigenous knowledge and culture.

The power in telling the story

But despite these big wins, it has been a continuous struggle to have their story told and especially have it told in a way they found to be comprehensive and true.

“Either indigenous peoples like the Aeta are invisible in society, or their presence is framed and narrated by others. Whenever mentioned in textbooks, or current reports or as part of policy making the wording doesn’t come directly from them. This is instrumental in the continuous marginalization of these peoples,” says Ms. Alve Berdan, who is coordinator of E-Net and a strong supporter of the viewpoint that empowerment comes with the ability to narrate your own story.

Therefore, besides continuing the financial and technical support to LAKAS in implementing and strengthening alternative education components in schools, E-Net has worked with LAKAS and the Aeta High School to strengthen documentation and communication skills.

“We would like to have a documentation of the achievements within education to be able to inspire other indigenous organizations and use the examples in our advocacy for alternative education that are appropriate for indigenous peoples. And in E-Net we were thrilled to learn that there was a group of students at the high school who really wanted to tell this story themselves and use it as an opportunity to learn the skills of script writing, acting, filming, and editing,” says Ms. Alve Berdan.

Hence, for the past two years, students have so far worked on three films that document the history of the Aeta people, the Aeta cultural practices and ancestral knowledge as well as the processes and results of implementing alternative education in the Aeta schools. The first one is the one yet published - the two others are on their way. 

Empowerment of the youth

“From not being able to tell our own story to now having both some very important pieces of documentation and young members of our society that now master these technologies and techniques is truly empowering for the youth, who have been involved, and for us as a people,” says Ms. Helen Abarra.

The films will now be screened at a series of events in the Aeta community and edited versions will be used for various communication and advocacy purposes. Both E-Net and LAKAS will continue to support people in being able to tell their own stories.