The Mangyan Project - latest news
Sustainable jobs for the indigenous Mangyans on the island of Mindoro / Philippines

Monday, march 3rd 2008 - two weeks after we started, our two supervising couples delivered the first products.

Christine & Mike are from the village "Abra" at the north-western part of the island Mindoro. There is no road to Abra, so you have to get there by "banka" which is the most common boat type in the Philippines.



The waves were a bid high that day, but they made it without getting wet.

Marilyn & Nick are born Mangyans. They live in a village, not far from Puerto Galera in the northern part of the island. They had to take a boat, too.

Both couples arrived to Coco Beach with bags full of Easter eggs made out of Coco lumber.

Connie & Enrico, the owners of Coco Beach Resort are the founders of this project and our administrative base is at Coco Beach.

Now it was time to look at the merchandise and to take photos for our web-site.

It soon showed, that the eggs were of various quality and we found that in some cases the shaping could be improved or the lumber finish could be better. However considering that this was the first attempt by the Mangyan we were more than satisfied. At the very worst some eggs needed a reshape but fortunately we had bought plenty of sand paper.

Next it was time to look at the book-keeping and settle several invoice payments. In the Philippines financial matters often are taken care of by the ladies of the household.

Our two supervising couples are no exception. This time round nobody could find fault with anything, and it was all found to be accurate.

As for now, twenty Mangyans are working within the project. Both Marilyn and Christine will visit nearby Mangyan-villages in the days to come. They will contact the patriarchs in order to find more people who need a job. We have ordered plenty of raw materials and are convinced that we can increase the total manpower significantly.

Puerto Galera
March 7th 2008