REVIVING THE LOCAL WISDOM OF MENTAWAI CULTURE Last week we sat down with Fransiskus Yan, the Head of Mentawai’s cultural education foundation, Yayasan Pendidikan Budaya Mentawai (YPBM), to discuss their self-managed education program and how they perceive the relationship and involvement

We are excited to announce that the Yayasan Pendidikan Suku Mentawai (YPSM) was officially changed to the Yayasan Pendidikan Budaya Mentawai (YPBM) with the number deed of establishment, Notary Rismadona, SH.AHU – 0012635 AH.01.04 Year 2018. The Yayasan Pendidikan Budaya

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