Voice and Images from the Mountains: Building Indigenous People's Capacity to Conduct Community Based Health Impact Assessments of Mining Projects

The project also builds people's capacities in education and advocacy strategies. These include developing skills in digital photography and film as a means of documentation and witnessing/evidence gathering for advocacy purposes, as well as in community theatre, which would be a means for channelling people's reflections on environmental and health education. Specifically, these methods include the following:

• The use of video and photography to document health impacts and people's experiences with mining - A basic documentation workshop equipped participants with skills to independently and collectively record the effect of mining in their communities, thereby telling their story using their own voices and perspectives. Participants learned how to handle a camera and produce photos and footage that can stand as evidence or testimony to their community's experiences. They also learned how to organise these materials for use in supporting their claims.
• Community theatre to teach community members about the health impacts of mining and the health indicators they should look for as well as to provide a venue for community members to voice their experiences with mining - A community theatre workshop component sought to collect community narratives, synthesise experiences, crystallise aspirations, and visualise these to be reflected back to the community. Metaphors and symbols were generated by both the participants of community theatre at different levels of the production and echoed to the community during the presentation itself. "The presentation enriches the understanding of both participants and the audience about the effects of mining. Moreover, this workshop empowers the community by affirming their cooperation and collective effort towards the creative production. The output may also become a part of their public engagement for audiences outside their community, and may even take the form of street theater."

Other Community Outcomes:

• Engagement of indigenous communities in a dialogue about the potential and actual health impacts of mining projects. The HIA workshop and community theatre, as well as the transcommunity exposure trips, became venues where community and inter-community discussions on mining and its potential impacts were discussed. Aside from skills and knowledge sharing, the discussions became opportunities for planning how to address the threats or the impacts that the communities were facing.
• Enhancement of knowledge of health researchers and trainers and cultural workers on community contexts and the potential of their work on the lives of indigenous peoples affected by mining projects.
• Engagement by indigenous communities with concerned government agencies through using the results of the HIA studies, including the video documentary, photo exhibit, and HIA report. These outputs have been used to engage concerned government agencies such as local government units, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, and the House of Representatives about the health impacts of mining - as well as to lobby for policy changes.

Health, Environment

According to organisers: "The Philippine Environmental Impact Statement System, under which the health impact assessment falls, is criticized for its vague definition of 'social acceptability,' failure to address conflict of interest situations, where the assessors, study preparers and the reviewers are in effect paid by project proponents, as well as the failure to strictly monitor the conditionalities the government agency sets for projects to operate. Such situations do not prevent rampant manipulation of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) and make it appear favourable for the project to continue in spite of real threats and community opposition. Other issues include the lack of disclosure of project information to the public, lack of accountability of those who did the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) which could then allow falsification of data, and the lack of an independent and third party body that could conduct a truly objective impact assessment..."

Furthermore, CEC claims that many indigenous communities are not reached by basic social services such as health care. This becomes even more problematic in mining communities such as Rapu-Rapu and Canatuan, where the public health services are funded by the mining company. There are reports that these health services discriminate against community members who are anti-mining or make patients sign non-disclosure of their health condition to the public. It therefore becomes even more important for health researchers and workers to have a more active role in mining communities.