Guest * – Page 128 – Goducate … Go And Educate!

2009-11-302009-11-30

Goducate’s new learning center in Batu Aji Batam

Batam is Indonesia’s “SEZ” (Special Economic Zone). Hundreds of multinational companies (MNC’s) have factories on this island. In the past two decades, almost a million people (mostly from other parts of Indonesia) have come to Batam to look for work.

Many of them eventually bring their families over and settle down in Batam. Because almost every one on this island is a migrant, Batam has the feel of a frontier town. Needless to say, most of these migrants face many challenges as they try to cope in a new environment, learn new skills, etc.

Goducate started its first learning center in Batam in Punggur, to meet the needs of the poorer migrants. This center provides English, computer and music classes for both school-age students and adults.

Presently, over a hundred regular students attend its classes throughout the week. A Singapore health-care organization, MHC Asia Group (Singapore) generously supports this center – not only financially but also by sending its staff over to help teach the students and to provide medical care.

Encouraged by the success of this center, Goducate decided to start a second center in a much larger town called Batu Aji. Again, MHC Asia Group stepped up to provide advice, encouragement and finances. Two months ago a large shop-house right in the “heart” of the town was rented and extensively renovated.

Goducate expects this center to attract hundreds of people because of the large population in Batu Aji and the lack of free education for the migrants. Goducate expects to start operations at the end of November and provide kindergarten classes, English, computer classes and other livelihood programs.

Thankfully, some excellent teachers have offered their services to help us to develop our curricula and training programs.

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2009-11-272009-11-28

Camp Goducate in Alimodian Philippines

The Philippines continues to have a very high birth-rate because of the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to birth control. As a result of this many families struggle to provide for the needs of their children. Added to this problem, is the fact many adults (especially the ladies) have to go abroad to look for work. Therefore, many children grow up without the care of a mother.

Lack of money and lack of parental guidance has resulted in a many out-of-school youths, many unwanted pregnancies, teenage marriages and juvenile delinquents.

A year ago, Goducate decided to start weekend camps for Filipino youths in the island of Panay. Groups of about 100 youths from poor villages were invited to join these weekend camps – where they attended teaching sessions, played games and made new friends. The result of these camps was remarkable. Parents noticed visible changes in the behaviour of their kids. And the kids clamoured to join subsequent camps. However, due to the lack of camp facilities and funds it was not possible to invite these youths to follow-up camps.

The Committee Of Camp Goducate Philippines

At about the same time when we started experimenting with youth camps, a Singaporean who presently resides in Brisbane, Australia asked me how he could help. I suggested to him that it was a good thing to help the poor youths of Philippines and he readily gave a generous check – which was then used as the down-payment for a 6 hectare piece of land in Alimodian, Iloilo Province, Philippines.

The owner of this land, Mrs Gonzales, was a poor single mum who ran a market-stall selling vegetables. Later she became a successful wholesaler of mangoes. With the profits of her business, she bought this piece of land many years ago. It was a beautiful piece of flat land surrounded by hills. On the flat land are 2 springs of water, which do not ever stop flowing. Each weekend, she and her children would go to this piece of land to plant mahogany trees, fruit trees and bamboo on the slope of the hills. The flat land was cultivated with rice.

I had the privilege of meeting Mrs Gonzales through mutual friends. When she heard that we were looking for land to build a camp, she offered her land at a very good price.

A camp committee is presently looking at how we can best develop this land so that poor youths can have the chance to learn many useful lessons and skills.

The cost to develop this large piece of land is beyond our present resources.

The possibilities are mind-boggling.

The number and needs of Filipino youth is scary.

But we must do our best to help them – before it is too late!

More photos (click thumbnail to view photos):
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2009-11-252011-11-25

Settling in nicely into their new home

Two months ago, Goducate sent a team of 11 English teachers from 5 countries to teach English at the Jogjakarta School of Environmental Engineering (called Sekolah Tinggi Teknik Lingkungan or STTL in Bahasa Indonesia).

Jogjakarta is the campus capital of Indonesia – with over 100 tertiary institutions of higher learning, attracting students from all over Indonesia.

Most of the students of STTL come from the poorer provinces of eastern Indonesia – and the objective of this school is that most of their graduates will return to their provinces to help improve the infrastructure of their home-places (particularly, to help electrify their home-places).

Heading the team at STTL is Prof. L E Redick, who is the Director of our English center, which is called the International Center of English Excellence (ICEE). The rest of team consists of our Head Teacher from India, 2 Filipinas, 2 Singaporeans, 3 Americans, 1 Malaysian and 1 Indonesian. Their task is to make STTL a center for English excellence.

The team has settled nicely into the comfortable on-campus accommodation provided by STTL. They are busy teaching both the faculty and students to upgrade their English and in the process have made many new Indonesian friends and built wonderful bridges into the lives of their students – many of whom will be the future leaders of Indonesia.

News of their good work is spreading and other universities in different parts of Indonesia have already approached us to start similar programs in their universities.

Indonesia is an emerging country with a great future.

Indonesia welcomes us to help them!