Amarachi Ibekeme, Chumo Chen and Yeojin Kwon discuss the experience:
Greenseed’s vision was to address environmental degradation and gender inequality. Do you find that your project was successful in supporting this vision?
Yes, we believe our project was successful in supporting Greenseed’s vision of addressing both environmental degradation and gender inequality. We focused on how environmental vulnerability directly affects women and their families’ daily labor, livelihoods and economic opportunities. This shaped our approach in designing recommendations that were both environmentally sustainable and reflective of the women’s needs and interests.
The project focused on identifying livelihood ideas that could strengthen local resilience while creating more inclusive opportunities for women. These ideas include production of organic compost made from pig manure, locally sourced food production such as fish, a communal garden, and production of coconut derivative products like oil and pie. We tried to gather information from the local women who are the experts of the local community context and emphasised the practical initiatives that communities could realistically sustain using available local resources.
Most importantly, the project highlighted the often invisible yet valorised domestic labor performed by women and brought attention to the unequal burdens they carry in maintaining households and livelihoods under conditions of economic and environmental insecurity. By centering women’s experiences and voices in the research and recommendations, the project aimed to contribute to more equitable and community-driven development approaches aligned with Greenseed’s overall vision.
How was your experience preparing for the field work? How did you go about the logistics and what was the support you received?
Preparing for the fieldwork was both intensive and collaborative during the Fall semester of 2025, when we were assigned to this ARP project. Before going to the field, we spent one semester conducting background research and literature review on the community context, government structures in place, environmental conditions, existing local livelihoods, previous projects and their activities, and gender dynamics in Real, Quezon. The team also conducted a literature review of relevant theories, contextualisations, and analytical frameworks, with great support from our faculty lead, Professor Christophe Gironde, our Teaching Assistant Paul Théo Deshusses and our partner, Greenseed, headed by Anna Devine and Esther Peev. At the last stage, we prepared interview guides and questions to ensure ethics and structured field engagement while remaining adaptable to local realities.
In terms of logistics, a local NGO on the ground called Haribon Foundation managed almost all the preparation works, including coordinating transportation, accommodation, scheduling interviews with relevant stakeholders, budgeting, and securing the materials needed for field activities and documentation. Thanks to Haribon, the onsite fieldwork went smoothly as they communicated with local stakeholders prior to our arrival.
The support received throughout the process was substantial. Greenseed fully funding our fieldwork and practical guidance from Professor Gironde helped shape the research direction and methodology, while local community members and government staff provided invaluable knowledge during the fieldwork itself. Their openness, hospitality and willingness to share their experiences made the research process much more grounded and meaningful.
What were some key take-aways or conclusions you drew from this experience and how does it support your overall learning experience in the MINT programme?
Some of the main takeaways from this experience came from being able to be inside the community, being invited into people’s homes and seeing their real-life hardships firsthand. This made everything we had studied much more real. One concrete example was a woman we met who worked as a healthcare worker, was active in several community and women’s groups, ran a pig farm and at the same time carried out unpaid domestic work and cared for her grandchildren. Seeing how skilled and resilient these women were, despite the hardships they face, was very striking. There is a strong culture of resilience and hard work, but at the same time this can make them vulnerable to exploitation, which we explored further in our analysis.
Being able to humbly listen to their ideas and see their drive was truly inspiring, and they really shaped the study. It also made us reflect on our positionality as researchers coming in from the outside. The women were incredibly warm and welcoming, but it raised difficult questions. For example, we are studying environmental degradation, yet we arrived by plane from another part of the world. At the same time, these communities contribute the least to environmental degradation, yet are often expected to carry the biggest burden in fixing it, sometimes without compensation. In some cases, environmental harm occurs out of necessity, for example, logging for fuel because of economic constraints. This made us more aware of the inequalities embedded in both environmental and development work.
Overall, this experience gave us a unique opportunity to see in practice what we had been studying throughout the semester prior. It was very rewarding to see theory come to life in the field, which is what the Applied Research Project is really about. It also supported our learning in the MINT programme by giving us firsthand experience of how NGOs operate, how development projects are implemented and how research is conducted in real-world settings.
The ARP encourages team work. How did you approach working collectively before, during and after the trip to the Philippines?
Teamwork is truly a central part of the ARP experience, and it gave us a very hands-on understanding of what collaboration actually means in practice. We had all heard horror stories about ARP groups where people did not get along or where some members did not contribute equally, so naturally there were some initial concerns, especially knowing that we would be working together for two whole semesters and in our case even travel together for 3 weeks. Luckily, we could not have been more fortunate with our group dynamic.
From the beginning, we worked very well together. We divided tasks and writing sections based on our individual strengths and interests, set clear timelines, and held regular meetings to stay on track. During the fieldwork, teamwork became even more important because we were spending the entire day together and even sleeping in the same room. It was a real bonding experience, but also required a high level of coordination, communication and mutual understanding.
We had to coordinate interviews, decide who would lead or take notes, and adapt continuously, with valuable support from our local partner on the ground. We also supported each other in practical ways. Towards the end of the fieldwork, when the schedule was lighter, we could take turns resting to unburden each other. When we encountered challenges, for example, issues with interpreters, we addressed them collectively by discussing the situation and finding solutions together. We held regular debriefings after interviews to share observations, identify gaps in our data and adjust our approach as needed.
After returning, we continued this collaborative approach by dividing the report into sections while still coordinating closely to ensure consistency. We stayed in communication with our partner organisation and faculty lead while finalising the report. Overall, the process went very smoothly and it truly felt like a masterclass in teamwork.
Could you share with us a fun or important moment that occurred during this experience?
One of the most meaningful moments of our fieldwork experience was on the final day in the community. After our exit program, where we presented our findings and the KALIPI women shared their preliminary business proposals, we were invited to stay and spend the evening together. The evening was both simple and unforgettable: we shared dinner, tasted a local wine one of the women had generously brought for us and sang karaoke together.
This experience stood out not just because it was fun, but because it created a genuine moment of connection. It allowed us to step beyond our roles as researchers and engage more personally with the women we had been working with. In doing so, we were able to better understand their perspectives, needs and aspirations.
That evening reinforced the principle that developing sustainable livelihoods is not just about data or plans, but about listening closely and respecting the agency and preferences of the people at the center of the work. By sharing in their daily lives, even briefly, we were reminded that meaningful solutions must be grounded in local realities and built in partnership with the community.
