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Sustainable backyard farming – Yard long beans

On my recent visit to the Goducate Training Center in Iloilo, Philippines, I was surprised at how large our vegetables looked.

The average bitter gourd was about a foot (25 cm) long. The okras (ladies fingers) were over 6 inches (12 cm) long. But what really surprised me were the long beans. I’d never seen such long long beans before. They were about a yard (almost one meter) long and thick as my thumb! They were called yard-long beans.

I thought the phrase “yard long” was just a nick-name for our large produce until we sat down for a Goducate meeting one night and was told that one of our volunteer agricultural advisors was away in Thailand teaching the Thais how to grow yard-long beans. It was then that I realized that this was a special variety of long beans.


On further research I realized that this was not the usual variety of long beans that I’d seen in most supermarkets but was actually a different variety altogether. It was a variety of cow-pea.

I discovered that it is a fast-grower. In less than 60 days of sowing on our earth-worm produced organic fertilizer, we can pluck and pluck and pluck these beans for the next one year!! These beans can grow several inches per day!

I discovered that it is extremely tasty!! And that it is nutritious – and is full of proteins, which the poor lack.

It is exciting that Goducate can help put veg@tables for Asia’s needy!

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The “Software” @ Goducate Training Center in Iloilo, Philippines

Having met and worked with many teams in various corporate companies or organisations from different countries, diverse backgrounds, multi-racial, cross-cultures over the last 25 years, I must admit that the team of key personnel/volunteers at the Goducate Training Center in Iloilo, Philippines is very different!

May be different is not a good word to describe this group of people. Let me think of a more appropriate adjective … passionate, well, more than that. Committed, yes that’s what they are. United, definitely! Bold, creative, dedicated, energetic … the list goes on … but one thing that comes up all the time is FUN!

Whether is the construction of buildings/huts, the irrigation lake and canals, plant-nursery, green-house, vermi-culture beds, activity fields, hiking trails, clearing of land, terracing of slopes, planting of hybrid rice or vegetables and fruit-trees, the FUN element never seem to cease!

I can’t quite describe what makes this great team of workers so unique, but there is certainly something special in them! So much excitement! So much enthusiasm! So much zeal! … that it is influential and spreading to those around them!

It was great to see the “hardware” (training centre) shaping up but it felt better to see the “software” going strong and progressing on the right track! Indeed, “People makes the difference”!

As we discussed the business model and first phase of training programmes at the Centre to groom community workers when the multi-purpose hall is completed by end of this year, each minute did not go by without extreme excitement from these core workers. They are so willing to adapt and be flexible, going all out to make it work!

We are hopeful that this training centre project will excel because these people are having a great time developing and implementing their plans, or rather dreams to help their own needy community to help themselves!

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Musically-talented Melissa, an inspiration to many

I met Melissa during last week’s trip with several other Singaporeans to the Goducate Centre in Laguna, Philippines. She looked physically smaller than a normal 14-year-old but she behaved like a mature young lady.

Goducate-Laguna orchestra (Melissa in front row, 2nd from left)
Goducate-Laguna orchestra (Melissa in front row, 2nd from left)
Recorder players
Recorder players

She was playing violin at a special occasion when I saw her. After which she played solo for us. Wow! I was impressed! It was the 1st time I’d heard the violin played in a shabby, muddy, dirty environment. But who needs a concert hall? Melissa’s music was most inspiring and sweet sounding! She learnt how to play the violin in less than 2 years! Now, she plays for private functions, and even helps to train 22 children in music. She also displayed confidence in her conversational and public speaking skills. I was told that Melissa’s life was transformed after she met Goducate Community workers who helped her and her family.

Melissa is one of the beneficiaries from Goducate’s Musical Livelihood Project in Laguna to equip children and teenagers to make some money from performances and potentially gain free entry into High Schools through their musical ability, thus giving them hope. The training of playing a musical instrument also instils discipline and determination, as well as keeping them off the streets and getting into any troubles (drugs, alcohol, prostitution etc). More than a 100 children have been learning to play an instrument.

It was great to see the Goducate-Laguna Orchestra grow in size and strength. More native trainers are now involved, and setting a wonderful and hopeful example to many poor children who thought they would never have a chance to discover their musical talents or opportunities to showcase it.

Whilst there are many needy children and teenagers waiting in line to be trained musically, I hope Goducate supporters will donate more musical instruments to help these needy Asians help themselves.