Author: Bernard

The Goducate music program in Laguna has enabled many students in the villages around Bay to learn to play a musical instrument. We now have a senior and a junior orchestra. Many of the senior students give of their spare time to go out to various villages to train others. The program has enabled some to get scholarships to tertiary institutions on the strength of their musical ability, and some to earn pocket money either by giving private lessons or by performing as a group at various events. Most of all it has trained the musicians in qualities such as discipline, perseverance, team work, and leadership.

What the Goducate musicians do not have much opportunity for is to listen to concerts by professional musicians. In my effort to help them find this opportunity, I wrote about our group on the Manila Symphony Orchestra Facebook. Two days later Mr Jeffrey Solares, the director of the Manila Symphony Orchestra asked me to meet him. The result was some tickets for a concert for our Goducate musicians, and an offer to help improve their skills.

Last week 17 of our musicians attended a concert by the Manila Symphony Orchestra. Before the concert they met Mr Solares, who invited one of our violinists, Liezl, to attend his violin class at the Scholastica College Manila. In 2011 Liezl was one of five Goducate violinists selected by Channel News Asia’s “Once Upon a Village” Program to spend a couple of weeks in Singapore being trained at the Wolfgang Music Studio. She was subsequently invited back by the Wolfgang Music Studio to prepare for her Trinity College Grade 5 examinations, which she passed with a merit. In June this year Liezl completed a 3-month TESDA (Technical Education and Skills Development Authority) Performing Arts course at Arellano University

Our musicians were struck by the difference in level between their play and the Manila Symphony Orchestra’s. One of them, Aira Joy, who is one of the most promising of the junior musicians, said, “This is my first time to watch concert live and I am so much encourage. I want to be like the violinist. I want to play fast musical pieces”.

Backyard farming is one way by which Goducate believes that communities in poor villages can help themselves. What they grow can provide nutrition for the family, and what they save by not having to buy vegetables and fruit can go towards other family needs. Some households started a communal farm in Tranca, a village in Laguna, Philippines, towards the end of last year. Inspired by the progress that the communal farm is making, one family whose house abuts on to a piece of abandoned land needed little urging from me to cultivate that plot two and half months ago.

They prepared the beds, and Goducate provided them seeds from the Goducate Model Farm. When I visited them recently, I was happy to see different kinds of vegetables growing well. Tatay [“father”] Benny, head of the family said, “Every two days we are able to harvest okra [lady’s fingers] from our vegetable garden enough to feed my family with fresh vegetables. Our backyard garden gives us fresh vegetables and we are able to share with our neighbors. It makes them happy and we are also happy that we become a help to them”.

Other vegetables growing in the backyard are squash, potatoes, eggplants [brinjals, aubergines], cucumbers, string beans, moringa, and ginger. The fruit trees include papaya, banana, and guava. And Tatay Benny is planning to plant even more varieties to maximize the space he has.