Goducate’s music program in The Philippines was started as a means of getting out-of-school youth off the streets and out of trouble. We started with recorder lessons, which were so popular that many children still in school or college also joined in. The youth were so musical they soon went on to other instruments and formed an orchestra that was engaged to play at local functions.
The trainers in the music program have had some music lessons but not at any high level. Thus when Channel News Asia brought some music trainers from Singapore to visit the orchestra in Laguna for a TV program called Once Upon a Village, the Singaporeans were surprised to find that the violinists knew nothing about tuning a violin.
Still, the Singaporean trainers were sufficiently impressed to invite 5 violinists to Singapore for about 10 days of training at the Wolfgang Music Studio in Oct/Nov 2011. The studio later invited one of these 5, Liezl, back on two more occasions, each time for a couple of months, to prepare for the Trinity College London grade 5 examination. She took the examination in June, and has passed with a merit.
She is now back in The Philippines passing on the skills she has learnt to the others in the music program. She has been invited to return to Wolfgang Music Studio later this year to prepare for the grade 6 examination.
Jayson, another of the 5 who came to Singapore through the Channel News Asia program, was also invited back for a couple of months training recently. He too has been invited to return later this year to sit for exams. Meanwhile he, too, is passing on whatever skills he has learnt to other Goducate musicians.
Both Liezl and Jayson exemplify the Goducate philosophy that those who have been helped by Goducate should in turn help others.