Guest * – Page 21 – Goducate … Go And Educate!

2017-12-082018-06-15

Goducate Kicks Off Nationwide Sports-coaching Training with GoBasket Philippines

Goducate is adopting basketball as an approach to transforming lives through education in all 42,036 barangays (villages) in the Philippines. The reason is, as Philippine Basketball Association Coach Felimon Casuga put it, “Basketball is really the passion of this country. [Filipinos] love to play…so we come into their lives by playing the game of basketball”. He was speaking during the first GoBasket Philippines Sports Coaching Training held for Goducate on Oct 11-13 at Camp Goducate Training Center in Iloilo.
Echoing his sentiment was Coach Paul Advincula of FIBA International, who added that the heart of the movement is to train basketball coaches who will reach “rural areas, the less-privileged…those in the grassroots”
“We want to reach out to…the fatherless, the motherless…the leftover kids,” backed up Coach David “Boycie” Zamar, also of FIBA International. “The impact starts with poverty. If you saw what Fox Sports has been showing after Yolanda, it was only basketball that has been de-stressing coming from typhoon-struck areas. Doing basketball for kids, and basketball for father-and son relationships,” he continued.
These three of the country’s top coaches came to Camp Goducate Training Center to train 43 participants from different backgrounds, including school teachers, church leaders, community leaders, and students.
Coach Casuga made two other points. First, “Sports coaches have the biggest impact on the lives of kids, because when a coach says something, a kid is supposed to follow without question”. Second, a 2011 study from Concordia University confirms that “Coaches have a unique relationship with their athletes. [They] are mentors, parent figures, career enablers, and judges — all at the same time”. That same study stressed the importance of building relationships, more than teaching the technical skill of basketball.

Goducate aims, through GoBasket Philippines, to capitalize on coaches’ influence to transform the lives of Filipino youth, especially those who are vulnerable to drug addiction and other vices.
Agape Abarte, one of Goducate’s Community Development Trainers (CDTs), highlighted the potential of basketball as a tool for transforming Filipino lives. “Every neighborhood has its basketball court and that brings together everyone in the community when there is a basketball game……….We have around half million basketball courts in the country, including those that are open courts, gyms, under the coconut tree, side of the mountain, anywhere you mention. And there will always be a kid out there who needs…the fundamentals of basketball and life.”

One of the trainees was Junnel Palma, a BS Criminology graduate. He shared that he had originally dreamt of becoming to a professional basketball player, but felt he was too old for a basketball career. Instead, he now wants “to teach the kids what I know.”
To keep the ball rolling, after the training session in Iloilo, GoBasket Philippines went on to conduct the same program in Goducate Laguna, on Oct 31-Nov 2 for 49 individuals, and in Pulupandan, Negros, on Nov 8-10 for 35 participants.
Numerous basketball clinics designed for youths are now on going in different barangays, thanks to these newly certified coaches.

*Our guest writer is Queenie Guibao, Batch 10 Trainee

2017-09-302018-04-08

Goducate is starting Learning Centers for Marawi Evacuees

On May 23, 2017 ISIS attacked the city of Marawi (in Mindanao, Philippines). Marawi is the largest Muslim city in the Philippines. Four months on, the fighting continues, and large parts of the city are reduced to rubble by daily aerial bombing.
An estimated 400,000 people have fled from the fighting, mostly to the neighbouring city of Iligan (40 minutes by car from Marawi). Of these 400,000, fewer than 10,000 are housed in government evacuee centers. The rest have found refuge among relatives in neighbouring villages. Almost all the evacuees are Muslims.

I went to Iligan with a team from Goducate in August and visited 4 “centers.” The living conditions were appalling, with hundreds living in crowded makeshift “rooms.” All the children were not attending school and were unlikely to return to school for several years (because schools have been destroyed).
In response to requests from the local leaders, we decided to start learning centers for these thousands of children. Since Goducate’s philosophy is “helping Asians help themselves”, we will be teaching the mothers among the evacuees to teach their own children. We have successfully established similar learning centers in Sabah for the past 8 years.

In October our Sabah team of teacher-trainers will start training the refugee mums ,who should then be able to teach their own children with Goducate curriculum and school supplies.
We hope that every child will have a chance to continue learning despite the difficult and dangerous conditions around them.

A family's living quarters — A family’s living quarters

Goducate believes that every child deserves the chance of a decent education.

2017-08-192018-04-25

Goducate Brings Health Awareness to Senior Citizens in Barangay Manguna, Philippines

Goducate’s goal to go and educate all 42,000 barangays (villages) in the Philippines. One of the new barangays reached is Manguna in the municipality of Cabatuan, in Iloilo province. Goducate reached this community with our Health Information Drive (HID) for senior citizens.

First, Goducate community development trainers (CDTs) trained 7 barangay health workers how to conduct a HID. Then on June 29, barangay health workers, together with Goducate CDTs, shared what they had learnt to 132 senior citizens in Manguna. The elderly were taught, for free, about the risks, causes, symptoms, and treatment of diabetes and hypertension — the country’s top killer diseases. They were also taught the benefits of Moringa loifera (malunggay) and how to make malunggay powder.

Since then, the Goducate CDTs, with the barangay health workers, have been going house-to-house to do weekly follow-up visits and measuring blood pressures in Manguna’s seven zones.

Barangay Manguna is the biggest village in the municipality of Cabatuan, with a population of over 2000 residents in 500 households. It will be under the care of Goducate Iloilo’s 10th batch of CDTs from July to September. This plan is in keeping with Goducate’s aim to train trainers who can raise up leaders in the community, so that the communities can be self-sustaining.

*Our guest writer is Queenie Guibao, batch 10 trainee.