Watch Gimikera [streetwalker] @ the SFo Public Lib | A Powerful new Doc on Human Trafficking in the Philippines

Gimikera (Streetwalker)

A film by Ligaya Domingo & Justin Hakuta

Set amidst the bustling urban sprawl, towering skyscrapers and tin-roofed shantytowns of Manila, Philippines, Gimikera (Streetwalker) is the gripping tale of Mylene, a survivor of forced prostitution, and her struggle to find meaning in a life of exploitation and abuse. With interviews from leading anti-trafficking organizations, Gimikera (Streetwalker) depicts the brutal reality of human trafficking in the Philippines through the eyes of Mylene capturing her triumphs and hardships as she fights to put the pieces of her life back together.The film will be shown on October 3, 2008, Friday at the Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Public Library 100 Larkin Street San Francisco, CA. Screening Starts at 6:30 and will be followed by a talk with the filmmaker.

For more information email ligaya@traffickingproject.org or call 347-323-3670

Gimikera (streetwalker) is a production of the Human Trafficking Project, a New York-based nonprofit organization that utilizes art and technology to raise awareness of modern day slavery, connect those working to combat the issue and support trafficking survivors. For more information on human trafficking and what you can do to help visit www.traffickingproject.org.

Girl Effect

Young Asian Women's Leadership Forum (YWLF) Bali, Indonesia Nov 2-5, 2008

The Young Asian Women’s Leadership Forum 2008 is a collective, integrative and necessary regional initiative that aims to address, deconstruct and provide viable solutions and alternatives to the challenges facing young women leaders of the Asian women’s movements. As elsewhere, the Asian women’s movements are led by women who emerged as leaders in the 1970s and 1980s.

Their themes, their methods of organizing, their conceptual tools have so far dominated the movements. Similarly Women’s Studies in Asian universities are faced with a generation gap. There is an urgent need for the continuation, expansion and creation of rich Asian feminisms incorporating the needs, methods and concepts of young women. In the face of the highly patriarchal and hegemonic forces of neoliberalism and fundamentalisms, young women have to find their voices.The forum will provide a safe, nurturing and mutually supportive peer based environment that will enable young women from Asia to develop a nuanced understanding of feminisms within a regionally contextual and topically relevant framework.

The forum will be held in Bali, Indonesia from 2-5 November 2008. It will be an integral component of the Kartini conference’s focus on the future of Asian feminisms.

Major Objectives of the YYF:

• Identifying, organizing and orienting young feminist leaders from all over Asia for a sustained and active network for working on women’s issues.

• Alignment of the young talent, research, innovation and initiative in line with the ongoing women’s movement, to make it stronger, more visible, larger and inclusive with the fresh influx of young blood.

• Establishing the much required link between the three major generations of feminisms, the ‘been there done that’, ‘the movers and shakers of the present’ and the ‘exploring, opening and kindling fires’.

Thematic Focus:

1. Identity Politics: Gender, Embodiment and Hetero-normativity

2. Break the Silence: Express yourself, don’t repress yourself: Re-examining women’s sexuality, sexual rights and gendered language/ silence in women’s movements and academia

3. Another World is Possible: De- Gendering Poverty, Livelihoods and Neoliberal Development Discourse

4. The Art of Peace

5. Standing on the shoulders of giants: bridging the genertion gap

6. Circles of Affinity

7. The Future of Asian Feminisms

For more information email: yff@kartiniasia@gmail.com

ADD US in Facebook! Search for Young Asian Women's Leadership Forum group

The Mirror Art Group: Making Waves in the Mountains

Working north of Thailand, Chiang Rai, The Mirror Art Group focuses on projects and programs that aims to help the hilltribe peoples of Mae Yao sub-district to combat their everyday struggles with unemployment, poverty, drug addiction and lack of Thai citizenship. The group also work to provide the skills, education and support to hilltribes of Mae Yao that prepare them to adapt and co-exist with lowland Thais without sacrificing their cultural identity.

The Mirror Art Group has one of the largest Internet presence within the Thailand NGO community.
Their well designed IT Development Program uses the internet to create a community to bring in volunteers, create funds, and develop projects. With six of their acitve core members being women working from web design, to e-commerce or leading volunteer teachers to the hill tribes, this group of young artists is trully making waves in the mountains for the hill tribes of Northern Thailand! They also design websites for other NGOs, to raise funds and spread information about the hilltribes to the rest of the world. What an awesome way to use your creativity and pile up the good deeds!

Here are some of the projects: (Taken from their website)

Backtohome.org - Missing Persons Locator
Throughout Thailand, economic and societal changes have created a migration pattern of individuals leaving the safety of their villages. In this migration, some people lose contact with family or disappear as a result of more sinister causes. Backtohome.org attempts to re-unite disappeared people with their loved ones.. Backtohome.org is sponsored by the Asia Foundation.

Virtual Hilltribe Museum @ www.hilltribe.org
The cultures of highland ethnic minorities in Southeast Asia are changing rapidly as the hilltribe people become more incorporated into the lowland majority societies . The Virtual Hilltribe Museum is geared to documenting these cultures and their changes for the world to see. The Virtual Hilltribe Museum is sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Bannok TV
With changes in the new Constitution, local stations will soon have the right to broadcast pertinent, non-Bangkok-centric local programming. Bannok TV is a developing local-access television station set up by the Mirror Art Group to address the needs of the Mae Yao community, keep them abreast of relevant issues, give positive media images to the hilltribe youth and address the lack of knowledge about the hilltribes in modern Thailand.

Project to Combat Trafficking in Women and Children
Every child has the right to happiness and to grow up in a safe environment. Unfortunately, among the poor of Northern Thailand, especially the hilltribes, this right is often not realized. The cities in Northern Thailand are full of children who have left school as early as the fouth grade to struggle earning money for their family. Worse yet, the extreme poverty of the region is fertile ground for those wishing to traffic women and children to wealthier areas of the country and the world.

The Story of PETA

After more than 10 laborious years of research, compiling, writing and editing, the book on the story of PETA is finally available to the public. Entitled A Continuing Narrative on Philippine Theater: The Story of PETA, the 740 plus page book is priced at PhP 1,499.00. You may call PETA - FAU for orders and payment: (+632) 4100822, 7226911 telefax (+632) 4100821.

About the book:

The Story of PETA may be considered a collective biography that provides a comprehensive yet intimate account of its lifework, from 1967 to 2007. It highlights the company’s unique approach and contribution to Philippine theater aesthetics, performance and pedagogy, and to popular education.

PETA began by asserting the then radical view of creating and performing plays in Filipino. A solid record of some 400 plays written, translated, adapted, published and performed, shaped the company’s and indeed the country’s theater history, enriching it through theater forms and techniques that express local, national and universal themes.

PETA’s pedagogy and aesthetics for people’s theater, a unique and powerful curriculum for training in theater and the arts has inspired artist-teachers to share their skills, talents and experiences with others, directed toward individual human development and societal transformation.

This book presents a chronicle of the collective journey of men and women who have inscribed a powerful presence in Philippine theater history. Woven together, their stories provide strings of hope and inspiration, a remarkable tapestry of dreams dedicated to Philippine theater, society, and nation.

As PETA enters its fifth decade of existence, it continues to nurture young artists who will metamorphose into artists-teachers- leaders and carry on the torch of art to inspire many to become cultural creatives.

Panaghoy ng Naghahanap: A Sharing of Experiences of Families of the Desaparecidos

In observance of the International Day of the Disappeared, the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR) will host a roundtable discussion on the 29^th of August 200 with mothers, sisters, and daughters of the victims of enforced disappearances. It will be held at the UP Balay Kalinaw, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City from 9:00 a.m.-12:00nn . Entitled Panaghoy ng Naghahanap: A Sharing of Experiences of Families of the Desaparecidos, the activity is a venue for sharing of experiences of the families and how they cope with the situation.

CWR is a research and training institution for and by women. Since its inception, CWR has actively promoted the rights of women through advocacy and services such as education, training, research and publication. Part of the advocacy work of CWR is the promotion of human rights, especially in cases and situations where women are affected.

The activity will gather women and human rights advocates from the academe, non-government organizations, government agencies, church and media.

We hope you will join us to show our solidarity with the families of desaparecidos.

For inquiries, please contact Di, Teta, or Osang through 411-2796 or 920-1373.

revising endless revisions for version 3

i've been out in batangas for the past 5 days re-editing gimikera. haven't had decent sleep in comfortable sleeping clothes. been wearing the same pair of jeans

my new post prod team, jim (a.k.a. gbong), marie, and ian is a blast. we've been cleaning up sound, color correcting/grading, re-editng sequences, eating a lot of junk food (c/o of marie), playing music etc etc. when we'd get really stressed out. we find a way to wake up by making fun of each other. formulating phony gossips among ourselves about ourselves it doesn't work all the time. especially on extremely late nights/ extremely early mornings.
where we'd end up dozing off where we're sitting.

ali, jim's wife is always gracious and sweet at these hours. when i come around looking probably very unenergized. she never failed to offer, "coffee?" or "cheese bread?" with a sweet smile on her face. its very comforting. she's a beautiful mom. andrea their one year older daughter loves me. the first time she saw me it seemed like i am someone very familiar to her. jim and i have this theory that andrea and i have probably met in a past life. maybe as monkeys or cockroaches or something.

and to think that i even had apprehensions, coming out all the way in batangas to edit. thoughts like, "is it worth coming all the way out in batangas for?" etc etc were running through my head as i half doze off in the 3 hour bus ride getting here. its a good thing i've been learning alot about listening to my intuition these days. so far it's been a fun ride getting to where were trying to get at with this team

gimikera has been a long arduous journey of the mind, body and spirit for me. i have been learning so much about my craft, my self and people in the past 5 days that i've been here. i guess this is how i am basically going to be with anything that i will be doing for the rest of my life. sometimes everytime i go through an artisitic process, i feel that i give so much of myself away. it's exhausting and blood and wallet sucking. everytime though i come out feeling more whole than before. it's interesting how one thing can take so much and yet give so much back at the same time. i wouldn't trade this process for anything less than what it is.

KASIBUAN @ GSIS MUSEUM

The KASIBULAN Exhibiton was opened by Brenda Fajardo March 7, Friday and was attended by KASIBULAN members, friends and families. It was a collection works done by members after 2004 by the women of KASIBULAN. Some works artists who participated had come all the way from Sagada and Davao.

My work was part of my BABAE . A panel of four photograms showing images of movement and for a static image of the body. It presented four movements and the absence of it.

Come and See new works by KASIBULAN artists!!!

KA-BUWAN-AN
March 7, Friday, 6pm
GSIS Museum
Financial Center
Reclamation Area Roxas Blvd.
Pasay City
*Exhibit runs until March 28

BUGSO
March 23, Sunday, 6pm
Nineveh Art Space
2452 1st Ave. Villa Silangan Subdivision
Sta. Cruz, Laguna
T: (049) 808-6617
*Exhibit runs until April 23

Babae Exhibition, Siwang Gallery, 2004

Babae (Woman)

For where the woman speaks and where the woman soars and where the woman roars.

Babae is an exploration of the woman through her body. The woman as how society continues to impose her realities through the ages. Here, Ligaya explores this using Barbie dolls to create the metaphor of the body with the deliberate use of the archetype of a woman that the doll represents. Drawing from her memories of Barbie dolls from her childhood. She uses its images to tell the story of women she witnessed in her life, a friend, her mother, an suspecting stranger she encounters in a street corner.

In 2004, these pieces were exhibited in a solo exhibition called Babae (Woman) at now defunct Siwang Gallery.

Para sa Tatlong Taong Kasama ang Singsing

3 8"x 10" gelatin silver prints
Para sa Alingawngaw ni Ningning

15 8" x 10" gelatin silver prints

Takusa Sari-sari
12 8"x 10" gelatin silver prints

Kasal-kasalan
8"x 10" gelatin silver prints

Alitaptap Sari-sari

15 8"x 10" gelatin silver prints

Gimikera (Streetwalker)

Gimikera (The Streetwalker), 2008

48 minutes, Stereo, Color

A Documentary by Justin Hakuta and Joy 'Ligaya' Domingo

Mylene is 29 years old. She grew up in a rural province of the Philippines . As a teenager, Mylene was forced from brothel to bar to brothel in a vicious cycle where escape is difficult, where the only option is prostitution. She has been the sex slave of a policeman. She has been a gift to politicians. She has been forced to board docked ships to service its customers. She gave birth to her son under these brutal circumstances. None of this was her choice.

Gimikera presents the life of Mylene within the issue of human trafficking in the Philippines- within the economic troubles, the cultural factors, the corruption, the international aid, the media coverage, the statistics and the hype of trafficking, you have the people that actually go through it all. You have normal people, like you and I, who are victimized and forever transformed by this terrible injustice. You have the social workers, lawyers, and advocates who tirelessly fight to combat the issue. You have organized crime and endemic corruption that allow trafficking to flourish.

This film depicts the reality of trafficking in the Philippines through the eyes of a survivor. Gimikera, or Streetwalker in English, follows the struggles and triumphs of Mylene as she picks up the pieces and tries to put her life back together.

Perya (The Carnival), 2007

Perya (The Carnival), 2007

30 minutes, Stereo, Color

A Documentary by Joy "Ligaya" Domingo

Perya or the carnival but not quite. Remember the magical ferry's wheel, the cotton candies and the vicious Zuma and Medusa? Don't forget the serene Deysebel! Where do we find them now? They are definitely not here. Perya is a documentary about a community of peryante (perya workers) moving from one town to another as they scrounge their ways through the very travels of beginnings and endings of every new site for every new fiesta.
Every new site is another splendor. Every new site is just another backyard for just another night.