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Goducate’s first Indonesian camp

Last weekend, Goducate held its first International English Camp for the youth of Indonesia on the island of Batam.

On Friday at lunch time, 60 Indonesian teenagers gathered at the brand new HIM Community Center for their first camp experience. After a short opening ceremony, fun-time began. A games team (one guy and four ladies) from Goducate Singapore led the Indonesian teens in a seemingly never-ending series of about a dozen back-to-back games. The Indonesians seemed to have limitless energy.

All instructions were given in English (with translation from our Indonesian Goducate staff). This was probably the first time that the Indonesians had listened to instructions given to them in English.

That evening a group of Filipino teenagers (children of Filipino expatriates on Batam) entertained them to a mime on moral values. The almost “professional” quality of the miming was an encouragement to the Indonesians who were not much exposed to drama. After the mime, our Indonesian Director, Sam Quek, spoke to the campers.

The campers collapsed that night in the rooms of the community center (which was really a series of 6 terraced-houses).

On Saturday, it was Drama Time. The 60 campers were divided into three teams. The drama team from Goducate Singapore (one man and three ladies) trained their respective teams for that night’s drama competition. Each camper had to participate in the drama and had to speak at least one line in English. To help them overcome nervousness, their lines were projected on the back wall of the hall for them to read from. As it was the first time that they were speaking English before a crowd, this was a real challenge for most of them. Nonetheless, they bravely took up the challenge and got a breakthrough in overcoming their fear to speak in English!

The next day, they struggled to wake up for a early Sunday program. After breakfast that morning they returned home to catch up on 2 days sleep!

For most of the campers, it was an unforgettable camp experience. Hopefully, it will not only be their first camp but also their first little step to learning how to speak English.

After the success of this first camp, Goducate has decided to hold monthly International English Camps on the island of Batam – and then in other parts of Indonesia in the near future.

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Lightning conductors for the Goducate children’s home in Cambodia

In 2009, we saw the construction of two brand-new dormitories, the purchase of two vans, and several other projects sponsored by our local and overseas corporate sponsors for the Goducate Children’s Home in Cambodia.

Installation of one of the lightning rods
Installation of one of the lightning rods

One of our concerns was the safety and well-being of the residents, especially for the more than forty children we now have at the children’s home. The wet season in Cambodia stretches for a long six months, from around April to September each year. Thunderstorms are common, as well as floods in some low-lying areas.

The children’s home is situated on high ground and is not susceptible to floods. What it may attract, however, due to the new buildings recently constructed, is lightning strikes during heavy rainfall and storms. That was why we requested our sponsor in the States to sponsor a couple of lightning conductors.

The installation of the lightning conductors at a total cost of US$8,500.00 was completed last week, just before commencement of the wet season. Our generous sponsor, upon seeing these photos, commented that “…Those are some serious lightning rods they are putting up. None of us here have seen lightning rods like those before!” Well, probably not in the States, but lightning storms are pretty common in our part of South-East Asia, and we need ‘serious lightning rods’!

Each of these rods cover an area up to a diameter of around 80 meters. We do hope that with the installation, our children can rest easy in their dormitories when it rains outside! By the way, seven new children arrived at the home a few weeks ago, and we are looking forward to meeting them during a visit we will be making next month. Three of these children are orphans where both parents are deceased.

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Invisible Asian urban communities!

All over Asia there are invisible communities. Some make themselves “invisible” because they don’t want to be bullied by stronger communities. This is one of the reasons why many of the so-called hill-tribes in Asia choose to live in the less hospitable hills away from the populated plains. Some others make themselves “invisible” because they aren’t supposed to be there in the first place. These are the illegal migrants. Others are “invisible” only because we locals don’t want to acknowledge their presence.

In large Asian cities, such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, there are hundreds of thousands of legal and illegal foreigners. On work-days they are usually spread out throughout the city wherever there is work to be done. On the weekends (especially on Sunday) they gather in their unofficially designated parts of the city to meet their fellow-countrymen, eat their favourite foods, buy dvd’s in their language, remit their money, share information about job opportunities, etc. Though these “foreign enclaves” are usually within the busiest parts of the city, and are bustling with thousands of foreign-looking people busily cramming a week’s activities into a few hours, these communities are effectively “invisible” to the locals.

Several months ago I brought a local Kuala Lumpur resident to visit a community center that we run for migrants in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. We parked the car several blocks from the center and walked to the center. As we were walking through the throngs of foreigners, he kept remarking “Wow! I didn’t know there are so many foreigners in KL!!” As a matter of fact, he had never, ever been to that part of KL!

When we finally arrived at our Goducate community center he was shocked to see so many foreigners in it. His remark “This is AMAZING!” To me the amazing part is that tens of thousands of foreigners in the busiest part of a city are usually invisible to the locals.

The likeliest reason for their “invisibility” to us locals is that we don’t really want to know them. We see them constantly around us around our homes and workplaces doing useful work. We know that they are necessary to our lives and economy. But we really don’t want to know more than this because to do so will uncover too many problems that they face.

But Goducate wants to know more about the problems that they face. And in its own little way Goducate wants to help them.

Yes, these invisible urban Asian communities of Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Nepalis, Ibans, Myanmese, Vietnamese, Indonesians, Filipinos, etc. desperately need help!