To start things off, a selection of 16 pages from a 60-page notebook, which was coincidentally ready for replacement by the beginning of the second half of the internship.
So what have you been up to?
Rurungan sa Tubod Foundation, that’s what.
Part I of the internship revolved around this independent organization in the Palawan province that has implemented–and more importantly, continues to maintain–a social welfare program that establishes economically viable weaving centres in small villages.
A cooperative arrangement between Rurungan and the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver, Canada was created to send two ECI students to work with and provide Rurungan with design expertise and knowledge while allowing us, the interns, to learn about sustainable craft and broader social, economic and political issues both within design and without.
ECI selected myself and fellow Industrial Design student Raneen Nosh for the internship. Our travel and living expenses were provided by the Institute while accommodation and meals were provided by Rurungan at their training and administrative centre in Puerto Princesa, Palawan.
In short, Rurungan trains women in small fishing villages to weave high-end, marketable piña textiles, a pineapple-based textile unique to the Philippines, as an entrepreneurial endeavour that provides supplementary income and a greater level of independence. The weavers work from home as they see fit and work for themselves, selling their output to the Rurungan foundation, which guarantees a certain return on their work and then markets and sells it locally and internationally.
Our learning involved understanding the origin of the province’s socio-economic problems and the various methods used to resolve them, then compiling and distilling the accomplishments and aims of the Foundation and disseminating them in a new data-driven website. We also visited two weaving centres and met with, interviewed and worked with people involved at all levels of the organization, from the pineapple farmers to fibre extractors, weavers, administrators and marketers. We also visited the show rooms in Manila and met with established designers involved with Rurungan and beyond.
The bulk of our work was the creation of a new website for the Foundation. Raneen handled the design while I did the construction.
A notable, 24-hour excursion outside our work with the Foundation was spent learning, first-hand, the entire process behind one of Palawan’s primary economic drivers, fishing, from fitting the boats to net fishing with 25 men in the middle of the night to trucking goods to buyers to selling in the local markets.
On a minor note I also managed to immerse myself in short video production, Final Cut Pro and the blogging tool WordPress.
Output: Videos, photos and writing
Photography
60-photo selection of the more than 1,500 made.
Oki-Oki
The used clothing store phenomenon in Baguio City.
Wikipedia editing and additions
Some gaps relevant to the projects that are being filled in on the global encyclopedia.
Bacon Sandwich
With Pablo and Ali, Host family home, Puerto Princesa, 1:00:
Puerto 1
Video walk-through of market activity, 0:33. Also notice some design observations to expand on later.
Tools and Modifications
Third set of various design observations in the Philippines.
Peace Corps Online
Features a photo taken of the newspaper in Manila regarding the killing of a PC worker.
Underground River
A 2:40 video of an excursion to the Underground River attraction, Puerto Princesa.
Philippines Nagtabon
A short video of a bicycle visit to the fishing village and beach near Puerto Princesa.
Filipino web designer network forum Including a discussion started with replies of links to other Filipino graphic designers.
An Inconvenient Truth
A Filipino blogger re-posts a photo to accompany a short article on her power going out because of the heavy election campaign advertising.
Security, Use and Packaging
More design observations from the Philippines.
Welcome to Puerto
A short video walk-through of the first look at Puerto, from the airport tarmac.
Out of / In Place
Design observations of a guest room at a family home in Manila, Philippines.
Philippines Traffic
Video from Manila, Philippines, April 27, 2007
Philippines Mall
Video from Manila, April 28, 2007
Part II
More to come as we are well into Part II of our internship, where we are currently living and working with a different organization to promote sustainable living, in particular combining traditional and contemporary design and behaviour to instigate the construction of self-sufficient, low-cost bamboo homes for the under-privileged in the Cordillera mountain region of the northern Philippines.
Update June 15, 2007: My official, slightly modified from this post, report to the ECI Co-op department (1.6MB PDF) .
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