Impact stories

Support Mentawai community to help preserve their language, economic independence, and one of the world’s most pristine biosphere reserves
Language is a shared experience. Imagine a student who returns home from school and lacks the ability to speak with their grandparents, close relatives, or even their parents. Indigenous Mentawai students face that reality every day.

Indigenous livelihoods in focus
Bai Tiru, a Mentawai mother fishes in the river for crabs, shrimp, and fish.Bai Tiru never wonders how she will feed her family. She looks to the right of the family’s home (Uma) and at the sky to determine if it is a good day to pick up the subba fishing net she had been taught to craft as a...

IEF & Suku Mentawai Creative Design Initiative: Participants
The Indigenous Education Foundation (IEF) partnered with the Mentawai Cultural and Education Foundation (YPBM) in September 2020 to facilitate a cultural arts and design initiative. Nearly 100 Mentawai students participated from 5 of YPBM’s indigenous learning hubs across Siberut Island,...

AUTHENTIC EXPRESSIONS, REAL WORLD ASPIRATIONS
September 2020 marked an exciting month for the Indigenous Education Foundation (IEF) and the Mentawai Cultural and Education Foundation (YPBM). Facilitated by YPBM and IEF, nearly 100 Indigenous Mentawai students from 5 learning hubs in Siberut Island, Indonesia, participated in their very first...

Indigenous Livelihood, body culture and play
Mentawai woman, Bai Tiru, fishes in the river for crabs, shrimp, and fish. Photo by Joo Peter.The spectacular colours and motifs of the Mentawai peoples—the body culture, play and identity of a surviving and burgeoning culture—were profiled in Live Encounters (August 2019), an on-line magazine...
IEF supports the 2030 UN
Sustainable Development Goals
and Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples.
ACN: 168 130 096
ABN: 57 168 130 096