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Opinion, Features

Nov 14, 2019

Bae Elma Bauzon: The woman born to lead her community

Being a witness to the struggles and victories of her community, 47-year-old Bae Elma Bauzon has dedicated her life’s work to uplifting the conditions of the people of Cantilan, Surigao del Sur.

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By Annafe Yparraguirre

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Bae Elma has always believed that she was born to volunteer.
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(Meet more women defenders of the forest.)

Being a witness to the struggles and victories of her community, 47-year-old Bae Elma Bauzon has dedicated her life’s work to uplifting the conditions of the people of Cantilan, Surigao del Sur.

The Cantilan-born Lumad Pakwanon knew the difficulty of being a working student —something that she does not want her four children to experience. In that bid, she had volunteered to teach preschool children in their community.

As an advocate of education, she would encourage children in their community to enroll in school – from primary to senior high school — which has eventually brought greater merits to their community.

Helping others in need has always been in Bae Elma’s nature – especially if it meant benefitting her community. In doing so, she readily responded to the call to support a week-long orientation on forest governance by the Centre for International Development and Training (CIDT) last September 2017 in Subic, Zambales.

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Bae Elma’s home town of Cantilan straddles forests of Mt. Hilong-hilong.
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Funded by the European Commission, the training is part of Haribon Foundation and BirdLife’s project to improve forest governance in key biodiversity areas in the country, which includes Bae Elma’s province.

She helped in the logistics of the training by facilitating the participants’ attendance and assisting some participants from the indigenous peoples’ community.

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Cantilan is also home to a marine protected area or MPA. Elma’s work helps the environment from "ridge to reef".
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Bae Elma has always believed that she was born to volunteer. She said volunteerism wasn’t hard for her, even when she worked for demanding roles such as being the barangay or village secretary, a member of a humanitarian organization, and the secretary of the Pacuan Manobo Indigenous Cultural Community or PAMICC.

All her efforts are bearing sweet fruits of success—both for the community and her family, with her oldest daughter following Bae Elma’s footsteps in honing children’s minds as a teacher in Palasao National High School.

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Elma with a fellow community member.
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(Meet more women defenders of the forest.)

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