Cooking for the Lumads

Reposting here my story published at UCA News. Fr. Franco Uras and his friend Dr. Wolfgang Csato will hold a benefit dinner for the Lumad children  7pm today, March 22, at Coffee for Health, Catalunan Piqueño.

In this photo, Fr. Franco sorts the newly-harvested tomatoes from his backyard farm in Buda.

 Priest uses gourmet food to help the needy

What started as a hobby for Italian priest Franco Uras has become a money-making venture to help tribal children in the mountain village of Buda in Davao City.

The Salesian priest and his German doctor friend, Wolfgang Csato, are hosting benefit dinners to raise money for children in the village. The duo prepare Italian and German dishes that they sell for US$8 during benefit dinners in nearby towns. (Read More)

Lumads meet in Kitanglad for 4th State of the Indigenous Peoples’ Address (SIPA)

DAVAO CITY  (MindaNews/24 July) – An estimated 100 Lumads (indigenous peoples) from various parts of the country will gather at the foot for Mt. Kitanglad in Bukidnon for the fourth State of the Indigenous Peoples’ Address (SIPA)  in time for President Benigno Aquino’s first State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday, July 26.

The SIPA will begin at 1 p.m. on Monday and will end on the 29th of July.

Erwin Quinones, campaigns paralegal of Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center-Kasama sa Kalikasan (LRC-KsK), told MindaNews that the IP representatives will be coming “from  areas affected by development aggression.”

He said this includes encroachment of mining, plantations and hydro-power plants into the ancestral domains of the indigenous peoples. [read more]