Typhoon Reming

THE DIFFERENTLY-ABLED children of the Naga City-based Help Learning Center (HLC) and the children at the Maipon Evacuation Center (MEC) in Guinobatan, Albay, are creating their own Taong Pinay/Pinoy (Otap) dolls as part of the summer outreach program of University of the Philippines students and the HLC that ends Monday.

The first workshop was held Sunday in Donsol, Sorsogon, as part of HLC's environmental summer camp. The delegation will proceed to the MEC today to conduct a doll-making workshop with the child-survivors of Supertyphoon "Reming."

The activity is the second phase of the workshops originally dubbed "Barbing Pinay for Bicol" held at the Naga Tomasa Community Center on March 30 where UP students led by Art Studies professor Flaudette May V. Datuin and Naga out-of-school youth in the care of the Department of Social Welfare and Development created dolls with life stories.

Among the dolls created in the Barbing Pinay workshop was "Otap," by the lone child in the UP delegation Ligia Daroy and UP student Digs Arcilla. Otap became the name of Barbing Pinay.

The activity is a collaboration between Asian Public Intellectuals, Barbing Pinay pioneers and the local governments of Naga, Maipon and Donsol. Interested parties may e-mail fdr_naga@hotmail.com or maydatuin@gmail.com or visit www.barbingpinay.multiply.com