Impressions of Community Building- The UDP Story

(A documentation on upland enterprises in southern Philippines)

The major purpose of this documentation is to amplify the interplay of realities presented, met and subsequently addressed by the Upland Development Programme in its struggle to facilitate the embankment of its mission to the lives of upland folks in southern Philippines.

For almost seven years, UDP has threaded the dreams of improving lives in remote terrains found in mountainous topographies. Despite the many pitfalls and setbacks, it continues to struggle and reach out to better the lives of the upland folks and communities. This is its story woven and entangled by the challenges, failures and successes of true people engaging to make a stake at progress...

Pictures of Upland Realities
in yesterdays struggles…

The traces of the past are essential tools in dealing with the future. It is the memory of lives spent hurdling with difficulties. Sometimes it posts barriers for improvement, making its trail strongly felt to burden the present in the struggle to reach a better future. The upland is practically the most difficult road to traverse. Its remoteness may prove to be unfriendly and hard to transgress...most of the time; it is left out and hardly awakens by progress.

This is an attempt to unveil the past pictures of upland communities…the struggle of its people on the road to rehabilitation and positive changes.

An abstract of the lives of eight villages scattered in the hilly and mountainous terrains in southern Philippines will somehow paint a replicating picture of common realities lived by and survived by upland folks. Let us try to imagine the lives of people resplendent with mediocrity, simplicity, and scarcity by journeying into the flashes of their past before the UDP and other key players for progress started working on the new pictures of their struggles…

Synchronizing Goals Through Community Formation

Another facet of this documentary is snapshots of realities found in the many faces of upland lives when the UDP started its journey in the realm of its mission and goals.

We will attempt to immerse and become acquainted with the endeavors of initiating little changes in communities as a means of staking bigger and more practical schemes for development. The upland folks are the major stakeholders of progress who are rarely afforded the opportunity to grow beyond the confines of their ordinary and customary day-to-day struggles. Yet when the UDP alternative and more systematic stance against all forms of scarcity became felt in their communities, motivating changes gradually beat common insecurities and apprehensions.