Guest * – Page 118 – Goducate … Go And Educate!

2010-02-152010-02-15

The biggest factory has only three workers

The biggest factory has only 3 workers!

When I visited our little new literacy center in Sabah (East Malaysia) recently, I peeped into the adjoining house. I saw 3 teenagers sitting around the dining table. At first I thought that they were eating breakfast. However, as people in villages tend to get up at sunrise, and it was already 10 am, I looked again to see what they were eating. They each seemed to be holding a piece of wafer or cracker in their hands As I looked more carefully, I realized that they weren’t eating anything but were cleaning the object that they were holding in their hands.

I asked permission to come into the house and saw that they were cleaning bird’s nest. Sabah is the home of a famous Chinese delicacy – the nest of a species of birds, the swifts. Swifts (a relative of the swallow) make their nests from their salivary secretions. They build their nests in the walls of limestone caves. The Sabah government issues licenses to gather these nests. When first harvested from caves, these nests are covered with filth and feathers. These 3 teenagers were busy cleaning these nests with tooth-brushes and fine tweezers.

It takes about 2 hours to remove hundreds of little black “dots” of dirt that are somewhat embedded in the white nest substance. For their effort they get 3 Malaysian dollars (less than US $1) for each nest that they clean. This is a good salary in this village. And the three teenagers are proud to have a choice job in the biggest factory in that village!

I met the boss of the factory. He proudly showed me a sheaf of licences that he had from the government. He was obviously very proud to be the owner of this factory. As he mentioned his list of “influential” friends in the village and town, I realized that this little factory with 3 workers was a major industry in that village!

Unless the kids in this village get a chance to learn to read and write, a job in this factory is probably the highest that they can ever achieve in this village.

Goducate believes that they deserve to have better opportunities than this one!

2010-02-122010-02-13

Hard to keep mums from starting literacy centers

It’s hard to keep eager mums from starting a literacy center!

Part of my schedule during my recent Sabah (East Malaysia) trip was to plan the start-up of more literacy centers. Our team had already seen the success of the first two literacy centers and were excited with the prospect of opening 5 more in the next 6 months.

So after the excitement and joy of seeing over 400 kids learning their ABC’s and 123’s in the first 2 villages, I went with a smaller team to survey 3 more potential villages. When we reached the vicinity of the first potential village at the outskirts of the town, we parked our van and walked along a long narrow shaky “path” of planks over swampy ground towards a little shack. We were planning to meet the teacher, Ms K, whom we had trained last December.

However, instead of meeting Ms K, we were greeted with the happy voices of about 40 children shouting “Good morning teachers!” As I peeked into the dark house, I saw Ms K teaching the kids using the plywood wall of her tiny kitchen/dining area as her blackboard. On this plywood wall was scrawled the alphabets. The kids were eagerly taking their turn identifying the alphabets.

“Hey, Ms K, weren’t you supposed to wait for us to come and discuss the setting up of a literacy center in your village?”

Well, the reply was “The mums couldn’t wait!”

Ms K was one of the mums that we had identified as potential teachers at our previous recruitment exercise late last year. Over 20 such mums were selected. They had to have a passion to teach kids and have some high-school education (preferably a high-school diploma). A master-teacher of phonics was tasked to teach them. The course lasted one week.

I left our “district” supervisor, Ms L (herself once an eager village mum) to discuss the future development plans with Ms K for the expansion of this literacy center to accommodate many more kids.

I was just too happy watching and listening to the kids enjoying their first taste of school to bother with the details of administration!

2010-02-082010-02-04

Once a govt rebel, now a helper of the helpless (4)

An interview with Linn, our Goducate worker among the depressed communities in East Malaysia.

Linn is a Filipina who now lives in Malaysia, with her husband and her three children. Her husband is working with poor migrants in Kuala Lumpur.

PC: What experiences did you have organizing “communities”?

Linn: As a young adult, I would gather teens bring them to such areas and inspire them to help and build relationships.

In the university, it was different. It was not just mobilizing students It was more on planning and implementing how to paralyze the system – all our campaigns and protests in the univ were 100% very successful.

It was there that I have learned to spot leaders and recruit them. I realized also the big responsibility of being the leader – people follow you-to where? they embrace your dream.

It was here where I really thrive on building and bridging relationships both for poor and rich students. i would listen to friends as they pour out their stories and dillemmas even when i should be doing something for myself. It was always, other people first. Must have gotten it from my mom and dad.

Later it was organizing women in the community – when I started having babies, I bonded with women with the same needs; then it was older women in the community; then the wives of my husband’s colleagues – these were all regular times of getting together, ask-share-learn times-where to get help, what to do; came up with directory-connected them with others to enhance relationships and skills; organized events to enhance “community needs” like seminars, trainings, conferences.

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Interview with Linn – Part 1