After my unsuccessful attempt at visiting the non-formal education programs in Lakas, I came across the Foundation of Our Lady of Peace Mission (FOLPM), which specifically focuses on serving marginalized groups within their community. The faith-based foundation is a “registered non-stock, non-profit, apolitical, and charitable organization” run by Sister Eva Fidela Maamo. FOLPM has many programs across the country, including health care, a hospital for the poor, scholarship opportunities and a program for street children. The program I was interested in particularly was the Aeta Resettlement and Rehabilitation Center, which envisions creating an “empowered and self-sustained community of Aetas”. The Aeta community in which the programs are being implemented is in Sitio Gala, a barangay between the towns of Olongapo and Subic.
After a conversation with the president, Sister Eva Fidela C. Maamo, who is referred to by many as an inspiring woman selfless and dedicated to the cause, and winner of the Asian equivalent to the Nobel Prize (The Ramon Magsaysay Award), as well as the Mother Teresa award, I was encouraged to contact Bonnie Roque, the field coordinator in Gala, who had been a part of the community development for over 16 years. Bonnie had 
spoken to Sr. Eva and knew of my interest in the education programs in Aeta resettlements—he immediately invited me to the community. Located in the hills, kilometers away from the highway, getting to the site took a short ride on a motorcycle, followed by a climb up the muddy road, impassable by vehicles in the rainy season (on one trip up to the center, we tried to take the motorcycle all the way up the road and ended up tipping over backwards!).
The Aeta community of Sitio Gala, is made up of 92 families. About 1/5 of the families call this area their ancestral land and have 
inhabited the area long before the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. The rest of the community have immigrated to this region, and I later found that although all members of the community would refer to themselves as Aeta, there was a lack of uniformity in traditional beliefs and practices.
Bonnie explained to me the mission and vision of FOLPM stressing the importance of empowering community members, and creating sustainable results. The major projects currently running in Gala include a fish pond and hog raising project, an herbal medicine and horticulture project, a co-operative for household items, a preschool feeding program, education until high school, and spiritual and values formation. According to community members, in addition to Bonnie, projects are both implemented by the foundation and suggested by the community. Although I was most interested in the non-formal education programs that I had heard about, I quickly learned from Bonnie, that they had been unsuccessful here. 
Bonnie explained to me the importance of livelihood here, which was the major reason that education programs did not work. Families here sell produce at nearby markets in Subic and Castillejos two times a week. Aside from those two days when they go into town, every other day is spent planting, harvesting, cutting, and prepping the produce. This creates a challenge for holding f
ormal classes, and even non-formal classes are hard to plan because finding a time when numerous adults are available is nearly impossible. While there are these challenges, after speaking with some community members, it was apparent that there is a demand for adult literacy here. Ate Marites, a mother from the community explained that there were some mothers who participated in the literacy program previously and could read and write their names and count. She said that this was important because it allowed the Aeta to vote in elections, and it helped them represent themselves and prevent people from taking advantage of them. The Aeta have long been subject to harsh treatment because of their status as indigenous people, and because of their differing appearance to most Filipinos. Ate Marites believed that these literacy programs allowed the Aeta to protect their culture, but agreed with Bonnie that it’s hard to get participation because of the struggles with livelihood. Other mothers said the same things. It was clear that there was demand for adult literacy programs here in Gala, but the problem was, how to go about them. It seemed to me that there had to be a more effective way of educating mothers, and I soon witnessed another approach, which was much more successful. 
Joel is a Filipino volunteer in Gala working on the alternative health care approach. He is a college-graduate nurse who was volunteering through the Jesuit Volunteers Philippines for a total of 10 months. Joel has been with the community for about 3 weeks—which was by then, the amount of time that I had been living in the Philippines. Joel’s work is as a health care worker, and part of his duties are to do home visitations and conduct mother’s classes. The purpose is to help educate mothers about basic health care such as hygiene, and about traditional herbal remedies. Traditional Aeta herbal remedies were taught to the mothers. One mother, Nanay Evelyn, expressed to me that although this knowledge was part of the culture, because of the displacement of people following the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, many families had become accustomed to using commercial medicines, which were much more expensive. In a way, re-teaching these techniques of using medicinal plants was a way of preserving Aeta knowledge and helping families continue their cultural traditions. The foundation donated medicinal plants to each family so that they could plant them closer to home, decreasing the time spent searching for them.
Home visitations and mother’s classes were very informal, and allowed Joel to accommodate to the schedule’s of these mothers. Therefore the conflicting problems with livelihood as seen with the adult literacy programs were no longer present. The classes were not only being taught by Joel, but also by a health trained Aeta, Carmella, so that in Joels absence the program could continue. The presence of Carmella made mothers more comfortable and allowed them to ask specific questions that perhaps Joel would not be aware of.
Accompanying Joel on his home visitations allowed me to witness alternative techniques for teaching a community such as the Aeta, where formal education is unrealistic and usually unsuccessful. For the adult literacy programs, this type of home visitation could potentially provide a solution to the conflict of livelihood. When asked, mothers agreed that if the teachers came to the individual homes of mothers, the literacy programs would be much more successful. However, Bonnie believed that this would be too expensive, and there would have to be a way to beat the cost, or find more volunteers, before these forms of adult literacy programs could be implemented.
Overall, it was exciting to see an alternative approach to health education, and even get to try out some of the herbal remedies myself! Home visitations in a community like Gala seemed like a good way for health care workers like Joel not only to inform the community on techniques, but to learn from them, and to check in with them on what the major concerns in the community are. Community development is a complex process, which requires constant communication of positive as well as negative feedback within the community to address what is and is not working successfully. In Gala, it seemed that the Foundation of Our Lady Peace was working well to empower individuals as well as create sustainable projects for the overall benefit of the community.
