Public outreach
One of the major activities of the PIPRP is public outreach. Most of this happens on our site during our excavation seasons, when we have dozens of students, tourists and officials visit every year. We run tours for schools, tours for local people, and tours for visitors – and we carry out tour guide training among locals from across El Nido, helping people learn about their heritage and giving them official status (by means of certification with the El Nido Tourist Office) as heritage tour guides.
We also give public lectures and create museum displays and posters, some of which are are listed here (download PDF). Some of these are for educational purposes, such as our local talks and museum displays, others for funding purposes – such as our exhibits in Manila. All are realised by our many project members, often as a group, and particularly our graduate students based in the University of the Philippines. In addition, we facilitate, assist and encourage local people to develop their own exhibits, museums and events with the project, in collaboration especially with project members from the University of the Philippines, University of Washington, and University College Dublin.
We have opened or been partners in the following four museums in El Nido:
Dewil Valley Museum
The Dewil Valley Museum was opened in 2016, and is the main museum for the PIPRP. The museum is a sustainable community-owned and managed museum for the benefit of the people of the Dewil Valley, and aims to protect their cultures, heritage and environment. Funding for the museum was generously provided by Anthony Ferrera and El Nido Tourism. There is currently (2018) a go-fund-me campaign to raise money for exhibit curation.
Much of the community work associated with the Dewil Valley Museum has been carried out by Llenel de Castro (University of the Philippines), in particular the development of exhibits and community activities, with previous preliminary community engagement discussions, heritage mapping exercises, and surveys being conducted by Lace Thornberg (University of Washington) and Mary Barnes (University of Washington), assisted by Jun Cayron (Palawan State University), all through the auspices of PIPRP. Educational materials used with museum have been developed by several members of PIPRP based at the Archaeological Studies Program at the University of the Philippines.
Balay Cuyonon
The Balay Cuyonon Community Museum was developed by the Sibaltan community in consultation with museologist Lace Thornberg. This museum comprises a traditional Cuyonon house, with traditional artefacts, all made by community members. There is also a garden of traditional plants used by the Cuyonon community. The Balay Cuyonon has become a tourist attraction, along with the Pangko built by the community (see below), and has contributed not only to community heritage, but also to the development of ecotourism activities in this part of El Nido. The development of the Balay Cuyonon was an outcome of the Ancient Shores, Changing Tides project (Lace Thornberg and Peter Lape, Burke Museum), which linked the Sibaltan community with the Suquamish community in Washington State. The communities visited each other and supported each other in the development of community heritage projects.
Sibaltan Pangko
On the back of the enthusiasm from the Balay Cuyonon project, Sibaltan community members decided to build a traditional boat. This is a large boat – but is a scale model at about half-size! – with traditional artefacts. You can go on the pangko and climb around. The PIPRP was not so directly involved with this project, but we like to think of it as a spin-off from our community museums collaboration. This and the Balay Cuyonon heritage museums really demonstrate how community-led efforts can help develop tourism in tandem with sustaining heritage.
Sibaltan Archaeology and Heritage Exhibit
This small exhibit established by the PIPRP in the Sibaltan village community hall in 2010, shows aspects of our archaeological fieldwork and community heritage engagement there in that year. The exhibit is still there (2018) and can be visited by asking for access from community members.