A viable multicultural approach to pastoral counseling for the Mangyans refugees from Mindoro, Philippines

Abstract

A Multicultural Approach in Pastoral Counseling the Internal Refugees has a general objective to develop a multicultural counseling approach in pastoral care, based on experiences of the Helpee, the Mangyan national minority of Mindoro Island, and the Helper, the church response to the concrete situation and needs of the internal refugees. The participants of this research came from the "Kanlungan" or safe haven, who lived in the compound of PCU-UTS campus in Dasmariñas, Cavite in February 2002 of to May 15, 2003. The basic problem of the study stand from the Helper-Helpee relationship. This study will examine the culture of people, the Mangyan national minority world view, symbols-meanings, spirituality, and religious practices. The basic method of this research is field study. The main researcher stayed in Kanlungan Center, the internal refugee community from February 2002-May 15, 2003. In this period, he gathered data through the various instruments and tools techniques of the indigenous; to the ethnic study of Filipino community. Such techniques are: immersion, observation and participation to the daily life practices and belief system of the Mangyan refugees, the understanding of the world view and practices of the Mangyan culture and life. In terms of gathering and analyses of the data, this researcher employed various tools and techniques to surface the anthro-socio-psychological and ethnographic data, and the spiritual dimension and experiences of the participant both the helpee. The Mangyan people of Mindoro province were caught in the cross fire due to the militarization in the countryside. Developmental aggression lead by the government, the Mangyan to leave their ancestral land forced this people to seek safe haven and live their lives in peace, justice and freedom. The studies of related literature particularly the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) are also surveyed as program service and method of developing professional education for the minister. This type of pastoral training is mostly under the supervision of the chaplaincy program in the hospital, “where living human living” served as point of reflection. The in-depth study of one’s culture, personality and relationship is employed in this study. The history of pastoral care in the Philippines in the early church, like didas calia apostolorum in the Latin Church practice is examined and found beneficial in this study. Specifically, this study will find solutions to understand the: a) Mangyan's community "Helpee" culture in terms of world view, symbols-meaning, folkways, traditions or customs, spirituality and religious practices like psycho-socio economic needs, b) Pastoral Caregiver “Helper” perspective of the spirituality of help intervention. The pastoral team's pool of experiences, skills, tools and techniques, where put together and tried among the internal refugees varied problem, dilemmas and psychological states. The dynamics of the helper-helpee dyad relationship is the main concerns of the study; thereby focusing on the patterns and processes of acculturations in the meetings of two or more cultures. The research methods, tools, and techniques employed is the field study approach. Often tools and technique, such as observation-participating and immersion, are equally helpful for the recreation to go deep in understand the culture and psychology of the Mangyan. Spiritual exercise to plot the movement and direction of assessing the spirituality of the participants of the study are employed using the Bevan-Golemans' model for contextualizing theological tools, specially a guidelines to determined psychological trauma are used by the team of professional psychologists. Interviews guide to gauge psychological needs, together with the technique of dream work analysis and case study of the trauma survivors. The thesis of this is that multicultural approach is viable and a prerequisite in pastoral care and counseling methods. Multicultural approach is the study of the dyad pastoral relationship between the culture of helper, i.e., Christian pastoral care giver of "safe haven" and the helpee, i.e., Mangyan as one of the national minority indigenous groups lived temporarily in internal refugee center. Research, findings show that the helpee (Mangyan) have a rich and varied worldview that sustained their community life together. Such view are of self, life, social relationship, nature and ecology, economics of land stewardship, maintaining household chores and responsibilities, and even the use of time and specific daily routine practices that brought about various symbolic meaning. The Mangyan culture has a system of symbols and meaning that are observable and inviting for the outsider to participate and to be involved. The symbols and the corresponding meaning for example weave in their grooming, marked in their accessories and dressing/clothing. Steady improvement in terms of relief and rehabilitation gave results of Mangyan stay in the Kanlungan Center as gratifying to both the helper - helpee sector of this endeavor. Another finding is the effect of in-house training and orientations conducted by the staff of the Christian volunteers in orientation to the internal refugees for the appreciation and improve methods of work in Kanlungan Center. Based on the testimonies of the volunteer helper, their Christian spirituality and experiences in terms of administration and implementation of the helping interventions, a factor that enhance this journey to faith, mission and Christian service, and perspective wise. A multi cultural pastoral counseling that could be based in given an ministry was proposed and tried on at the internal refugees center. The proposal signifies the importance necessity and ample applicability of the phenomenon of multiculturalism and multicultural approach in pastoral counseling.