Indigenous Youth Front (BPAN)
The Archipelago Indigenous Youth Front or Barisan Pemuda Adat Nusantara (BPAN) is AMAN’s autonomous wing organization, established on January 29, 2012 and incorporating indigenous youth at the age of 17-35 from 7 regions in Indonesia (Papua, Kepulauan Maluku, Bali-Nusra, Sulawesi, Java, Kalimantan and Sumatera) who is committed to BPAN’s Statute. BPAN functions as (1) a forum for indigenous youth of the archipelago who share the same fate of being oppressed, exploited and deprived of their rights, and who have passion and desire to rise, unify and fight to establish politically sovereign, economically independent and culturally dignified indigenous peoples; (2) a forum for AMAN’s activist cadres to defend, serve, protect, and empower indigenous peoples; and (3) a forum for gathering, harmonizing, channelling and fighting for indigenous youth’s aspiration and interests, for increasing political and legal awareness and for preparing novice cadres and indigenous people activists in all aspects of life as a society, a nation and a state.
By preserving our traditional arts and culture, eventually we will hold on our identities more securely, leveraging our pride, dignity and self-confidence in implementing our values and wisdoms. Hence, through this initiative of “Preserving the Ancestors Grand Cultural Heritage in Contemporary Manners”, we will revitalize and develop our traditional arts and performances by preserving the root philosophy of our culture, yet wrapped in a more contemporary package to fascinate other IP’s youth interest and participation. Finally, these traditional wisdoms, arts and cultures would be a priceless contribution to our nation true identity, as well as to the world society, and would be endless source of wisdoms in preserving our Mother Nature.
Our main achievement is capacity building. From the training on documentation, had emerged four (4 participants who seriously wanted to learn more in-depth on documentary study. After the training on documentation, we produced three referential videos on our Grand Cultural Heritage, namely on Ulos (traditional hand-woven clothes), Kecapi (traditional music instrument), and Perisai (traditional armor or shield. There are two books on display entitled “Trace of Ancestors: back to the villages” and “Ancestral Grand Heritage: the fate and the situation”.
