Iligan City is one of the few remaining localities in the country and the only one in Mindanao that allows kalesa as a means of public transport. Locally known as tartanilya, the horse-­drawn carriage, serving a specific route, was introduced by the Spaniards in the Philippines during the 18^th century. As the local government extended the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Iligan to contain the spread of the new coronavirus, the city’s corps of tartanilya remains grounded.

Erick, a kutsero (tartanilya operator) and father of five, finds life quite hard at these times. With his tartanilya grounded due to the lockdown, he has no income to support his family whose youngest member is just a year‐old.

During MPI's 2019 Annual Peacebuilding Training, one of the founders and former Board Member of MPI, Guiamel Alim gave a presentation to the participants on Mindanao. He focused on the newly formed Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), highlighting the opportunities and challenges. Guiamel is presently chairperson of the Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society (CBCS) and Director of the Kadtuntaya Foundation, Incorporated (KFI) in Cotabato City.

Below you may view the slideshow that was presented during the session. While the slides do not include the full explanation, we hope that you will still find them of interest and more or less self-expanatory.

Please click on the image/first slide below to view the slideshow.

forumZFD is happy to announce the Call for Abstracts for the first ever 'Conflict-Sensitive Journalism - an International Academic Conference', to be held in Davao City, the Philippines, on February 10-11, 2020. 

All information and the possibility to register for the conference can be found here: www.conflictsensitivejournalism.info.  You can download a short brochure about the conference here.

Most Rev. Dr. James Thoppil, Bishop of Kohima diocese, Nagaland laid the foundation stone for the Peace Center (A Centre for Education, Research and Community Action for Peace and peace studies) at St. Joseph Hr. Sec. School Campus Chumukedima, Nagaland on the 9^th of March 2019. The historical event was witnessed by fathers, sisters, 120 catechists representing various local churches form the diocese, church, community and village leaders, faculty members, and students from North East Institute of Social Sciences and Research (NEISSR), and staff and members of Peace Channel respectively.