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Goducate Team Leaders from China arrive for training

The first team leaders to arrive for the Goducate Training (Jan 18-22) were our North China team leaders, K and M (names withheld for security reasons). This dear couple have served in north China for 6 years.

K and M meeting with Goducate Leaders in Singapore
K and M meeting with Goducate Leaders in Singapore

They presently lead a team of almost 50 foreigners from US, Philippines and Singapore and about a dozen local Chinese. Most of the foreigners serve as teachers in different universities, colleges and polytechnics. The local Chinese serve as support staff to these teachers and in various important roles in our Goducate training programs.

China is progressing so fast. When we first started our projects in China in 2004 there was great need for English teachers. Today, the supply of foreign English teachers often exceeds the needs of China’s universities. China is indeed becoming an attraction for young foreigners seeking a “China experience” to add to their resumes!

At our strategy meeting last week with K and M, we decided to concentrate on training Chinese students to be leaders. Most Chinese students come from one-child families and lack the social skills necessary for team work and leadership. Furthermore, the Chinese school system emphasizes rote learning rather than creative thinking. As personal study is emphasized over project work, most graduates do not know how to work with others or how to lead others.

Before K went to China he was a branch director in one of Singapore’s largest real-estate firms. While his wife M was a manager in one of Singapore’s largest travel firms. They bring with them a wealth of managerial and leadership skills. In the past few years they have successfully mentored many young live who have since shined in their careers, pursuits and lives.

Goducate plans to start a more structured and effective leadership training program in 2010 to train Chinese to be leaders who will be able to impact the lives of thousands of other Chinese.

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Haiti Earthquake – urgent help needed now and AFTER the earthquake

Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has been hit by its worst earthquake since 1770. Its capital, Port-au-Prince and its surroundings, where almost a quarter of Haiti’s population lives has been devastated.

Thankfully, many countries and relief organizations have mobilized their resources to help this battered country. The speed of telecommunications and transportation has made relief work so much more efficient and effective. I am thankful and amazed at the speed, organizational abilities, resources and skills of these relief teams. They seem to improve with each natural catastrophe. The speed with they reacted this time seems better than after the Sichuan (China) earthquake in 2008, which seemed better than they did after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.

While the quality of emergency relief work is improving rapidly, the quality of the follow-up work does not seem to have improved much. In fact, in most such cases the vast majority of resources are used in the immediate relief work. After that, the poor country is usually forgotten – until the next major catastrophe.

The majority of Haiti’s population is illiterate. I am sure that far more Haitians have died from effects of poverty than from all its earthquakes. I am thankful for all the dear people who are doing their best to help Haiti in this hour of great need. But I hope that more people will also remember to help Haitians to achieve a better life after the horrors of this earthquake are over.

I’ve personally seen the effects of natural catastrophes in Asia – typhoons, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes. But all these pale in comparison to the on-going effect of poverty and hopelessness on millions of poor Asians.

Emergency relief work is needful.

But the less glamorous, on-going work of helping a poor child to learn to read and write is just as important – if not more important!

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Urgently needed: English teachers and computer teachers for Indonesia

Yesterday, Ibu Roska, our co-worker in Indonesia came to the Goducate office to share with us her need of English teachers and computer teachers for Indonesia. Ibu Roska has been my long-time friend and co-worker in Indonesia. All our three centers in Batam, Indonesia, have been started with her help. Without her experience and expertise in starting projects in Indonesia, we would still be groping our way through the complex web of Indonesian immigration laws, corporate laws, educational laws, etc.

Ibu Roska has built about 20 schools in different parts of Indonesia – most of them in poorer communities. Besides these schools she has built so many other community projects that she is unable to remember them all! When I say “built,” I mean that she has been the one who was instrumental in planning, raising the funds to build it, recruiting the faculty and staff, raising the funds to pay for the running of the school until such time that it could be self-financing, etc. This is certainly no mean feat for a lady who has no funds of her own, who is not part of a large organization and who has three teenage children studying in Singapore to look after. As far as I can see, what drives this dear lady is her strong desire to help Indonesians help themselves through education.

A Goducate center in Indonesia started witht the help of Ibu Roska
A Goducate center in Indonesia started witht the help of Ibu Roska

Yesterday she told me that each of the schools she has started is in need of English teachers and computer teachers. There is a dire shortage of competent English teachers in Indonesia, and a shortage of competent computer teachers and computers in the Indonesian school system. This fits in nicely with our Goducate strategy of helping poor Asians in these two important areas of education.

We ended our meeting with an agreement for Goducate to send English and computer teachers to two of her projects – a school in a remote place near Pekan Baru, Sumatra, and a new center that she has just built in Batam. (More information of the places and scope of work will be posted after we have worked out the details.)

We look forward to helping Ibu Roska help her people help themselves – through provision of Goducate English teachers and computer teachers and computer resources.

Will you volunteer to teach English or computer skills to Indonesians?

Will you give your computers to them?