New Creative Project to help Preserve the Traditional Way of Life in the Ifugao Region of the Philippines

A group of artists and social entrepreneurs are hoping to preserve the traditional way of life in the Ifugao region of the Philippines, through a new creative project funded through crowdsourcing site Kickstarter.

Ricefield Collective, a creative social enterprise based in Ithaca, New York, aims to produce a collection of stylish hand-made knitted products from the Ifugao region, while providing a much-needed supplemental income to the local community.

British artist Anna Maltz, the project’s design director, will stay in the village of Ujah for three months, to teach local women the art of knitting and to oversee the communal production of the group’s first collection. “By teaching them how to knit and by making a market for the things we knit together, we hope that we can bring an alternative income stream to them, in order for them to stay where they want to stay,” she told ABS-CBN Europe.

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How a New York Dentist used his Life Savings to Start an Airline...

A New York dentist, Joel Alcantara Mendoza, (or Doc Joel as he is fondly called by people around him), used his entire life savings to create an airline to benefit the people of remote Batanes, Philippines.

He left New York in 2006 to embark on an adventure of a lifetime to this  beautiful group of islands north of Luzon, in pursuit of love. He married a girl there, settled on the island, and used his life savings to buy the airplanes and set up the company.

He says as a young boy, he never dreamt of buying his own aircraft.  The idea to buy airplanes began when he was mesmerised by the breathtaking beauty of remote Batanes, where flights were sparse and infrequent. “I was stunned by the majestic beauty and awe-inspiring view of the island” he said in a recent interview.

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