About us
Read the story of Kahibalo Foundation!
Kahibalo means awareness
At the very first beginning we had an idea to name the Foundation in Cebuano, to pay tribute to this amazing regional Philippine language in the Visayas region, but also to fully grasp the local context of our work. We decided to go for a name “Kahibalo”, because it can be translated as “knowledge” or “awareness”, which fully embraces the essence of the Foundation and its overall goal.
Our mission
The mission of Kahibalo Foundation is to preserve the biodiversity of the Philippines, particularly in the Visayas region. We want to achieve this by improving the level of environmental and conservation awareness among the Filipino citizens. We want to make it happen through multidimensional education among different communities and research.
Foundation history
The originator and founder of the Kahibalo Foundation is Dr. Filip J. Wojciechowski – an environmental biologist who spent a long time on the Philippine island of Bohol. It was there that the love for local ecosystems and the great need to protect them from destructive human activity and preserve them for the next generations were born.
The idea for the Foundation
The idea for the Foundation started germinating in 2017. At the time, our founder, Filip Wojciechowski, was already working as a zoologist on the conservation of the Philippine tarsier (Carlito syrichta), which is the main component of our logo. It is one of the smallest primates in the world, and it is at risk of extinction, with several factors contributing to this situation, including human activities and irresponsible tourism.
Filip worked in Bilar – a mountainous municipality in the interior part of Bohol island. He lived in the remote village of Subayon where he spent almost four years. The focus of the work was mainly scientific at that time with a few activities going on beyond traditional research. Unfortunately, he encountered many problems along his research path that seemingly had no solution.
Cooperation with the University of San Carlos
Alongside the difficulties in persuading relevant stakeholders to collaborate on urgent projects, Filip also experienced indifference, or even reluctance from other parties involved locally, which was difficult to swallow. To break this impasse, he started collaborating with the University of San Carlos in Cebu City, situated approximately 70 km from Bohol. That move was a game-changer and not only helped him accomplish his research goals, but opened many doors in the process, for himself but also for many Filipino students, who were able to participate in the research in the field and from which most ended up on the conservation path. This fruitful collaboration lasts until now.
Beginnings of Kahibalo Foundation
After the completion of his PhD, Filip was left with a sense of unfinished business. Needless to say, he felt the huge need to contribute towards the preservation of Philippine forest ecosystems and their dwellers, but at the same time he knew that there is enormous untapped potential in the local Filipinos population that just needed to be triggered. The year 2020 and the impact of the global pandemic were the most influential with a lot of time spent on thinking and it was then that the idea of the Foundation started taking shape. Months of preparation and consultation resulted in the registration and launch of Kahibalo Foundation at the end of 2022. This was also the year when Filip came back to the country, which he holds such a deep affinity with, to fight for the Filipino biodiversity once more.
Foundation activities
To accomplish our mission, we have come up with various programs that focus on environmental education. In our opinion, it is crucial to set the ground for biodiversity conservation. Our flagship programs are an education course aimed at the improvement of teachers environmental knowledge and competences through a curriculum specially tailored to the Filipino context and research on Philippine tarsiers and colugos in Anda and Bilar municipalities in Bohol. Through the collaboration with the local universities we also train students to carry out field research on various topics. We hope that this will help in creating a high-class Filipino scientists staff. And with the Biodiversity Conservation Course, we are connecting students in secondary schools across the Philippines!
More about Kahibalo Foundation
Learn about those who are behind Kahibalo Foundation, what we do and how you can help us!
