The Taga-Kaulo people of TEP live in tribal villages in a mountainous area of Santa Maria, Davao del Sur, in Mindanao, the Philippines. There are 20 tribal villages, some located near the central village of Kilegbeg and some very remote. The people are poor subsistence farmers, living on land that is eroding and degrading due to large-scale deforestation. There are few prospects for them to become educated, improve their farming techniques, or generally upgrade their quality of life.
In 2008, Fr. Nestor Lisondra, a Diocesan Clergy of Digos, began to work with the people of the Taga-Kaulo tribe making it his personal mission to help unite the tribal people through a shared vision of faith, education, and sustainable farming, all with an eye toward reclaiming the deforested land. Thus the Tribal Empowerment Project (TEP) was established, with the goal of promoting sustainable development ***{link to-Farming Projects in farming, education, and the environment} in the 20 Taga-kaolo tribal villages.
Fr. Lisondra and the highly motivated tribal people established the agricultural arm of TEP in 2010 with the goals of 1) creating short-term income by increasing the variety and output of subsistence crops to sell in the marketplace, 2) creating reliable long-term income through sustainable animal and vegetable farming, all while 3) addressing large-scale environmental degradation caused by deforestation. (See The Farming Projects tab.)
The Tribal Empowerment Project (TEP) is a large, ongoing undertaking, ultimately involving all of the 20 Taga-Kaulo villages. As an interactive community project, TEP has seen growth and success, and its story is told in more depth on this website. But TEP needs the help of you and others to make it self-sustaining and to empower at least 1000 of the enthusiastic, hard-working tribal people. In this case, it takes MORE than a village!
Mountainous deforested land reclaimed with sustainable crops