After almost 1 year of implementing our Mentawai cultural education program, the Yayasan Pendidikan Suku Mentawai (YPSM) team have initiated a cultural celebration festival to coincide with Indonesia’s 73rd anniversary. This event brings all of the YPSM student groups from

The last few months we have been busy finalising our team, organising our new office, scouting a location to host our program and continuing to formally introduce our program to the wider community and government officials. For those interested, the

It has been a rather eventful month in Mentawai – gathering documentation for a campaign video; furthering our strategy to enable the community an avenue to sustain their cultural education program; and meeting with Mentawai Government heads to discuss their

Together with August Sikatsila, Suku Mentawai’s program manager, we’ve spent the past month gathering cultural and environmental-based research in the Sarereiket regions of Siberut Island. August headed our previous community research and survey activities and is indeed right at home

To help maximise our impact within Mentawai, Indonesia and beyond, we’re working in partnership with the Indigenous Education Foundation (IEF) supporting the production of a feature-length documentary film called As Worlds Divide. The film, directed by Rob Henry who has

The prospect of functioning without a telephone would be considered near impossible by a large and growing portion of today’s modern society who now depends upon this device to sustain a means of living. For better or worse, this change

Early November I met with Esmat in Padang (West Sumatra) to finalize registration of the Indonesian Foundation setup to operate the Suku Mentawai program. Namely, the ‘Yayasan Pendidikan Global Pribumi Indonesia’. This is now complete. Big thanks to Yeni and

Storytelling is a fundamental component of all indigenous cultures and heavily intertwined within their native educational systems. For Mentawai, according to Sikerei, “Our stories teach us about our history and how to survive here. They carry the wealth of Mentawai

To help raise money in support of indigenous Mentawai’s educational solution and promote awareness amongst communities throughout the world, we’ve designed a range of mens and womens Suku Mentawai t-shirts to sell. Made from 100% organic cotton and printed using