Guest * – Page 34 – Goducate … Go And Educate!

2015-02-062015-02-09

Goducate targets 400 new barangays

Goducate has started 2015 with an ambitious project. It aims to extend its helping hand to 400 new barangays (villages, districts, or wards) in Panay (an island in the Western Visayas group and on which the Goducate Training Center is situated) and Leyte (an Eastern Visayas island that was particularly badly hit by Supertyphoon Haiyan in 2013 and where Goducate did some relief work). Such an aim might seem impossible, but only by dreaming big for the less privileged Filipinos are we able to improve their present status. This project is called CDWs [community development workers] for the Barangays.

CDWs for the Barangays (CFB) is a six-month long project that kicked off on Feb 1. Ten groups of Goducate CDWs have been deployed to the island of Leyte and to the following towns on Panay: San Miguel, Oton, Alimodian, Tigbauan, Leon, Concepcion, Car-Bal-Es (Carles, Balasan and Estancia), Lemery, and Capiz. The target barangays will receive free health check-ups and health education. This health-education drive will cover the following:

I. For adults:
a) Blood-pressure checks and a hypertension-information drive
b) Random blood-sugar checks and a diabetes-information drive
c) A moringa-awareness and moringa-powder-making seminar

II. For Children
a)Good hygiene practices such as toothbrushing and handwashing
b) Checks on nutritional status, using World Health Organization Child Growth Standards for children aged 6 and under, and Body Mass Index for older children

This big project requires much in the way of materials such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, for which we will be glad to have sponsors.

*Our guest writer is Joanna De Leon, a community development worker

2015-01-302015-02-02

The children at the Goducate Children’s Home Cambodia

The Goducate Children’s Home in Prey Nob, Cambodia, near the seaport of Sihanoukville, currently houses 33 children. Several others have already turned 18 and have left the Home to work. Two older boys, Samuel and Joshua, are completing their studies in Cebu City, Philippines.

The Home provides a safe, loving environment for Cambodian children who had lost one or both parents, or who simply became unwanted by their families when their parents split up and remarried. Each child has a sponsor to meet their physical needs i.e the cost of their education, food and medical care.

Recently, one of the teenage boys, on an adventurous exploration of the far corners of the Home, suddenly decided to catch a squirrel he had spotted on a big tree. 14-year-old Andrew, despite the admonishments of his friends, shined up the tree. Unfortunately, his climbing skills was unable to match the squirrel’s, and he took a tumble and broke several bones. Recovery was quick, and the Home was thankful to his sponsor for graciously bearing the cost of hospitalisation.

Andrew showing us the tree he fell from.

2015-01-022015-01-07

GTC Graduation

Dec 19, 2014, saw the graduation of the 5th batch of trainees attending the Goducate Training Center (GTC) in Iloilo. These 30 community development workers (17 ladies and 13 men) successfully completed 6 months of training to prepare them to serve Asian communities, especially needy communities.

This batch was unique in several ways:

Firstly, unlike previous batches that were trained by both university lecturers and community workers, the teachers and trainers for this batch were all seasoned active community workers.

Secondly, this batch was exposed to much more community work than previous batches. The large amount of real-life opportunities for these trainees was largely the result of Super Typhoon Haiyan’s destruction of thousands of villages.

Thirdly, unlike previous intakes, which were limited to college graduates, this batch included non-graduates who had shown an interest in serving the poor.

Fourthly, this batch took in 8 trainees from Sabah, all of whom were “undocumented aliens” (aka illegal refugees) who had fled from southern Philippines to Sabah. All these 8 trainees had been through Goducate Learning Centers in Sabah.

Every one of the 4 above “firsts” was assessed to be good and will be continued in subsequent batches. The next batch starts training this month.

About half of the graduates of this batch have volunteered to continue serving the poor villages that they were assigned to during their training. A few are planning to serve other needy Asian communities and are in the process of getting their passports.

We are proud of these 30 newly graduated CDWs. We believe that they will keep up the good name of Goducate Training Center wherever they serve and continue to help needy Asians help themselves.