Author: Leo

Mr Ortiz is a very persistent man. He is also a very generous man.

When Typhoon Habagat flooded the area around Laguna bay in Aug 2012, Goducate tried to rehabilitate some of the families by training the men in agricultural skills and helping them set up a community farm in Tagumpay. It turned out to be very productive (see blogs Apr 19, 2013, Feb 14, 2014, Feb 21, 2014, and Mar 28, 2014). Unfortunately, the area is very flood prone during the rainy season, and the farm is unusable for many months of the year, so last year the other farmers gave up working the farm. Only Mr Ortiz persisted.

He is able to use the farm only from November to May. He starts with planting leafy vegetables, then tomatoes and eggplants. Only a couple of weeks ago he was able to harvest his “Black Behi” Pechay. When he had harvested enough for himself to sell at various markets, he allowed the other villagers to collect what they wanted—at no charge. There was enough for them to sell.

Mr Ortiz sells vegetables at various markets. When the farm at Tagumpay is not usable, he grows vegetables in containers, or buys them from other farmers to sell on.

In August 2013, Goducate partnered with Project Luke Foundation to offer some medical help to people around the Goducate center in Laguna, Philippines. This partnership with Project Luke Foundation was firmed up last November, Goducate signed a partnership with the Foundation and with Interchemex, a pharmaceutical company in the Philippines, to serve the community through helping them with their health needs.

Within weeks of signing the partnership, a session was conducted at the Goducate Training Center Laguna on December 22, 2014. It catered to those who had been affected by Typhoon Glenda (in July) as well as some people from other villages. More than 350 people attended the clinic. The volunteers at the event included local health workers, staff from the Philippines National Police Force in our municipality, as well as the students receiving bursaries from Goducate.

Then on January 3 this year, we conducted another session in the town of Calamba, about 45 minutes away from us. Again, members of the police force helped out. In this area there are about 100 informal family settlers. Most of the children and young people are not attending school.

Because so many of the children in the area are undernourished, and because of the poor state of health of the elderly, we shall be conducting monthly clinics there, as well as a feeding program for the children..

Goducate’s tagline is Helping Asians Help Themselves. So Goducate has to walk the talk and try to be as self-sustainable as possible.

Some Goducate workers in Laguna have been supplementing their allowances through different livelihood projects, such as through soapmaking, through producing vermicompost, or through giving music lessons. Those making vermicompost have been producing about 50 sacks of such compost a month (250 kg/ month), but are now hoping to scale up production to meet the orders from a client who wants 200 sacks a month. Scaling up would mean having the capital for the raw materials.

Recently two new livelihood projects were started. Both produce cakes for local schools and food outlets.

In October Jonatan (who started the soapmaking project several years back) and his wife started producing home-made rice cakes. Starting humbly with a capital of 100 peso ($2.25) to produce 45 pieces, production has reached 320 pieces a day. Not only does this work give the couple a weekly profit equivalent to about half the basic minimum weekly wage for a Filipino, but also there is enough work for them to outsource some of the production to a few Goducate colleagues.

Also in October, another staff member, Arjay, and his wife Nancy started making cakes from sweet purple yam. The idea of working with purple yam came to Arjay when he noticed the purple color of a 100 peso note. 100 peso was the only money they couple had left at that time. With a capital of 150 peso, they produced 10 pieces. Now they are producing an average of 40 pieces a day and earn nearly half the basic minimum weekly wage for a Filipino.
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Goducate income-generating projects are geared not only to our staff. 5 of our sewing machines are being used by the community to produce 45 dozen elementary-school uniforms per week, whereas machinists at our sewing center in town have been trying to fulfil a 2-month order for 300 sets of uniforms for a private universities.