Goducate’s mission is to help the needy help themselves. But we would also like them to give to other needy people what they themselves have received in the way of teaching, training, and mentoring. In this way a movement is created, so that each group of beneficiaries can become leaders who go on to transform the lives of others in need.
Many of the youth in Laguna who have benefited from the Goducate music program are spending much of their free time training newer music students. Some train students in their own town or village, but some travel a distance to do so.
Take 14-year-old Matthew, for instance. He walks 3 km on Saturday afternoons to Mabakan area to teach 4 students the violin on a voluntary basis. However, sometimes the mothers pool together to give him PHP150 ($3.40). When Channel News Asia was there filming the Goducate students for part 2 of Once Upon A Village, a program that will be aired in the next month or two, he was asked, “What is your goal for your students?” He replied, “For them to use the talent I share in pursuing their dreams and ambitions in life; like the hope I’m seeing after I finish high school (to get into a college school). I want them also to go abroad like me and experience the life in some other countries”. He was referring to the 10 days of training he had in Singapore, for which he was selected during the filming of part 1 of Once Upon a Village early this year.
Another example is Melissa, also 14, who also used to go by bus to Talahiban to train some students, but since her family moved there, she has more time to spend on teaching. She has 8 violin students, and 5 who are learning the recorder, but who hope to progress to some other instrument later on. The students are so eager to learn that they are often still at the learning center at 10 pm.