Author: Guest *

Goducate’s country leaders and project leaders from the different countries that we serve in stayed on after the official opening of the Goducate Training Center on Feb 11 for a three-day Goducate “summit”, to tell each other about their work and to plan together for the future. The leaders came from China, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and The Philippines. It was Goducate’s second international meeting, the first having been held in Singapore three years ago.

For most of the participants, it was the first time for them to meet each other face to face. Previously, they had only read about each other’s work—mostly through this website.

On the first day the project leaders told about their projects. On the second day, we hosted 200 guests who are involved in helping communities, to tell them more about our work and about how Goducate Training Center could help train creative community development workers. On the last day, the project leaders shared their “dreams” for 2012.

Some new potential additions to the team also attended the meeting. These are extremely talented men who are keen to start new projects for Goducate.

Our outcome-expectations for this Summit were: bonding of the Goducate team, sharing of experiences, and aligning of our plans for 2012. I believe that we met these expectations.

I believe 2012 will be a breakthrough year for Goducate because many of our projects are now tried and tested and ready for “scaling up”.

We hope to see Goducate helping many more Asians help themselves this year.

After months of preparation which included many over-time hours put in by a dedicated team of workers to complete the construction of various infrastructure and facilities, the Goducate Training Center (GTC) in San Miguel Iloilo Philippines was officially opened on 11th February, Saturday.

About 20 guests from Singapore had arrived in Iloilo the previous night and after a restful stay at a hotel in town, we packed up and moved to the GTC staff housing on Saturday morning. The official program started at 10 am sharp with the singing of the National Anthems of the Philippines and Singapore, and carried on smoothly with speeches by the Governor, and by Dr Paul Choo, founder of Goducate. Also in attendance at this important occasion were the other directors of Goducate, country representatives as well as the Mayor of San Miguel, Iloilo.

The ribbon cutting and the unveiling were no doubt some of the highlights. Several hundred guests were invited to partake of a beautiful, delicious buffet lunch prepared by our own staff, who had gone through intensive training both in the GTC and also in Singapore!

The afternoon activities were designed to be fun and educational at the same time, and many guests stayed on. The young and the brave at heart took rides on the zipline, and there were opportunities for mango harvesting, as well as sampling the freshest produce off the plants, all grown organically!

Certificates were also presented to a big group of farmers who had successfully undergone training to improve their crop production and learnt and applied efficient methods of farming. Our agriculture consultant, Professor Ric, spent hours with various guests, introducing us to hydroponics, container gardening, and even helped us with tilapia fishing. The sheep, though, were a bit shy and ran away from us!

With the pomp and the ceremony behind us and the departure of the VIPs, the Goducate Training Center and its dedicated staff could now look forward to the real work of training and helping needy Asians help themselves in the weeks and months ahead.

View video clip of the Grand Opening!