Since 2005, Kyabaan has been working to support indigenous youth in the southernmost island of the Philippines, Mindanao. Mindanao is a site of historic and ongoing counterinsurgency warfare aimed at suppressing local movements for autonomy and suspected communist insurrections. Since the War on Terror, the U.S. has been a growing presence in the region, providing military training, advising, and counterintelligence to the Philippine armed forces. According to Kyabaan staff, U.S. assisted counter-terrorism operations have resulted in “extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture and community dislocations” and have “been rampant and worse under the present regime.” Those who suffer the most are children, driven into the “hinterlands” by the fighting and stripped of their daily routines, including regular schooling.

Last year, with support from the Martín-Baró Fund, Kyabaan launched a food-producing community gardening program for youth, trained teachers and community leaders on how to respond to the effects of door-to-door military patrols on children, and conducted community forums on healthcare and other pressing local concerns. The group also arranged medical examinations for both children and adults. In their second year of funding, they will offer training in barefoot psychology, informed by indigenous spirituality, to teachers and community leaders involved in advocating for protection of the community’s ancestral lands and mineral rights.