One of the pillars of Cordillera Green Network's (CGN) activities is environmental education (EE). When communities undertake field activities such as tree planting and agroforestry, CGN conducts environmental education programs in local schools and communities.

The purpose of these programs is for the beneficiaries of the project to have a better understanding of how the project contributes to the conservation of the environment. It is very important for the indigenous people in the mountain communities to imagine the negative effects on their communities and people if they continue to destroy nature for economic activities. For many people in mountain communities, natural resources are so familiar that they do not see their value in them.

Our goal is also to raise awareness of environmental issues, not only among the direct beneficiaries of the project but also among other residents of the community, as well as the children and youth who will be the community leaders soon.

CGN has been working with KEEP, an environmental education organization in Kiyosato, Yamanashi, Japan, learning hands-on environmental education methods such as nature games. They also learned methods from facilitators of Sustainable Academy Japan, which promotes outdoor education for young children practiced in Scandinavian countries.

Based on these experiences, CGN has developed and implemented original environmental education programs that are suited to the nature, culture, people, and customs of the Cordillera mountain region.

CGN has also conducted many environmental education workshops using art and theater. Artists from Japan and the Philippines have visited the Cordillera region and developed unique methods of combining environmental education and artistic expression.

The applying theater in our workshops is one of the environmental education methods that CGN focuses on.

In the indigenous communities of the Cordillera region, it is common for all community members to sing and dance together during rituals and ceremonies. Indigenous people can move their bodies to the beat of gongs, which are traditional instruments, and improvise lyrics to chants as a matter of course.

So the Cordillera Green Network decided to apply community theater to environmental education. In the Philippines, a theater group called PETA (Philippine Educational Theater Association) has been active since 1967 and has often integrated theater into educational settings.

CGN's environmental education programs applying theater often feature local indigenous folktales. Folktales are full of stories that convey the wisdom of living in harmony with nature.

In other cases, we focus on local environmental issues. The workshop participants interview people involved in these issues from different perspectives and use the interviews to create a theatrical production through a series of workshops. Deforestation, water scarcity, mining development, etc. are some of the environmental issues we have covered. Having the workshop participants play the roles of people in different positions involved in environmental issues helps them understand the issues from different perspectives and gain a deeper understanding of the truth of the issues. Discussing the issues in the workshops also helps the participants to grasp the clues to solving the problems. The plays created in the workshops are performed with community members as the audience. This provides an opportunity for more people to become interested in local environmental issues. During the performances, we sometimes have "forum theater" workshops where the audience can brainstorm on solutions to the environmental problems of the topic. 

In 2017, we expanded these environmental education activities to Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia.

To so far, a group of young people who have participated in environmental education workshops through theater organized by CGN are called "Aanak di Kabiligan" (Children of the Mountain), and they continue to conduct environmental workshops to train future environmental leaders in their communities.

Environmental Education Leadership Training for Teachers in the Mountain Province 

Project duration: April 2013 - March 2016

Grant: Japan Fund for Global Environment by Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency, ERCA

In charge: Hector Kawig 

The "Environmental Education Leadership Training for Teachers in the Mountain Province” was a project to implement hands-on environmental education utilizing art and theater for elementary school students, high school students, teachers, and local officials in the Mountain Province.

In its first year, the project piloted various art-based workshops in schools in the municipality of Sabangan. Artists interested in environmental conservation in Japan and the Philippines were invited as facilitators. The program focused on outdoor environmental education activities for kindergartens, visual arts for elementary schools, and community theater for high schools. The artworks and performances created in each workshop were exhibited and presented at the Kawanan nan Batawa Eco Festival, where they were viewed by many members of the Sabangan community. A textbook entitled "A Manual of Visual Arts Workshops for the Environment" was produced to provide details of the art workshops conducted.

The second year of the project was an environmental education project for teachers. Seminars and workshops were held for teachers from elementary to high school. After the training, the teachers returned to their respective schools to develop environmental education curricula for their students.

In the third year of the project, similar training for teachers was conducted in Barlig, Mountain Province, and in the fourth year in Bauko, Mountain Province.

An Environmental Education Program Applying Theatre for Northern Luzon Indigenous Children

Project duration: April 2014 - March 2017

Grant: Resona Asia Oceania Foundation

In charge: Hector Kawig

The Environmental Education Project of the CGN has been conducting a series of workshops in which theater has been applied. In this three-year project, the facilitators were Japanese theater director and facilitator Ms. Setsu Hanasaki, and Baguio-based artist and director, Mr. Angelo Aurelio.

Ms. Hanasaki is a leading expert in applied theater in Japan, practicing theater workshops for people with disabilities and various vulnerable groups in society. She also has a deep interest in indigenous cultures and societies, making her a perfect facilitator for CGN's environmental education workshops in indigenous communities. In a theater workshop on environmental issues, she introduced the Forum Theater method developed by Brazilian Augusto Boal, giving participants the opportunity to consider solutions to environmental issues in a more concrete way through theater.

In the first and second years of the project, theater workshops were held in Tiglayan, Kalinga Province; Sabangan, Mountain Province; and Kiangan, Ifugao Province, where participants created plays based mainly on local folktales.

The third year of the project was held in Tadian, Mountain Province. The Aanak di Kabiligan Theater Group, a group of young people who had participated in previous CGN-sponsored theater workshops on environmental issues, was invited to participate. The theme was mining, which is being secretly exploited in the community. The participants interviewed people who live and work in mining areas in Mountain and Benguet provinces. Based on these interviews, they created monologues. These monologues were woven together to create a theatrical piece.

During this three-year project, we also produced educational materials for children. In the first year, we published a children's book based on a folk story collected during the drama workshops; in the second year, we produced a DVD on the Forum Theatre method; in the third year, we produced a video documentation of a play about a mine story performed by the members of the Aanak di Kabiligan Theater Group. 

Theater Project on Environmental Issues for Youth of Philippines, Indonesia, and Japan

Project duration: April 2017 -  March 2022

Grant: Japan Foundation Asia Center

Partner organization: Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Theatre & Arts Ueda, Komunitas Tikar Pandan(KTP)

In charge: Hector Kawig 

Raising awareness of environmental issues in local communities is essential to CGN, which has applied theater workshops as a method of environmental education in many communities in the Cordillera.

This three-year project, launched in 2017, seeks to apply this method to environmental issues in Aceh, Indonesia. The project also aims to bring together young people from the Cordillera and young people from Aceh through theater workshops to help them recognize their cultural, religious, and social differences and similarities and to help them understand each other as fellow Asians.

The province of Aceh in Indonesia lost many lives in the 2004 tsunami. After the disaster, development, such as resource extraction industries, flourished, causing environmental problems in people's lives and forests. For this project, CGN partnered with Komunitas Tikar Pandan (KTP), an environmental NGO established to help people after the disaster.

In 2017, the first year of the project, we created "Balitok-Voice from the community" by brushing up on "Mining Story," which was created based on interviews with people involved in mine development during a theater workshop in 2016. The play was performed in Baguio City and at the Uryu Theater in Makati City. The group "Anak di Kabiligan"  then traveled to Aceh, Indonesia, for the theater workshops and performances coordinated by KTP. The group visited a local mining site with Aceh youth and created a theater piece through a theater workshop based on their experiences.

In the second year of the project in 2018, the project site was located in Ifugao Province, which is registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a World Agricultural Heritage Site. The facilitators were Setsu Hanasaki and young facilitators who had previously participated in CGN's theater workshops. First, a workshop was held for high school teachers in Ifugao. They then conducted theater workshops for their students in their own high schools. The theme was local agricultural practices, including traditional rice farming in terraced rice paddies, and the problems facing this traditional agriculture. Ultimately, eight high schools produced a theater production through the workshops. Other workshops, such as creating the backdrops for the plays and making traditional bamboo musical instruments, were also conducted. The final performance took place at Don Bosco High School in Lagawe.

In January 2019, members of Komunitas Tikar Pandan, CGN's partner in Aceh, Indonesia, traveled to the Cordillera, visiting Ifugao, Mt. Province, and Baguio City, where they held workshops in elementary and high schools, colleges, and art spaces.

In October 2018, actors and actresses from Aanak di Kabiligan and teachers from participating schools who facilitated a theater workshop in Ifugao Province were invited to a Machinaka Theater Festival in Ueda City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. They performed a theater performance "PAYO" on the theme of "terraced rice paddies" and participated in a theater workshop facilitated by Setsu Hanasaki.