Author: Leo

Last month, Goducate hosted a 3-week massage course at the Goducate Training Center in Laguna for 7 deaf people and 18 other beneficiaries of the government’s Department of Social and Welfare Development’s (DSWD) Conditional Cash Transfer Program. Goducate has been partnering the department in implementing its Family Development Session in 15 villages, catering to more than 2000 families.

Laguna is south of Manila and is the resort capital of Luzon, where city people like  to spend their weekends enjoying the scenic view of Laguna Lake and soaking themselves in the natural hot Spring, from Mt. Makiling. Another attraction is the spa and massage service that some of the resorts offer. The possibility of getting jobs doing massage at these resorts is the reason why we partner with TESDA (Technical Skills and Development Authority ), the LGU ( Local Goverment Unit ), and  DSWD  to train people in massage.

The community farm in Tagumpay set up early last year for the victims of the heavy monsoon known as Typhoon Habagat has proved to be very productive (see blogs Apr 19, 2013 and Feb 14, 2014) despite being unusable during August to December because of floods. After harvesting about 1.6 tons of mustard and pechay since the start of this year, the farmers have paid back to Goducate the seed capital.

Another plot of land about 1000sq m in area and adjacent to the original 2000sq m farm has been made available to the farmers. It has been planted with a variety of vegetables, such as tomatoes, eggplants, sweet gourds, corn, and squash. With so much area to cover, watering has been difficult. Hence Goducate has bought a water pump for the farm. The farmers will repay the capital for this pump in stages. 4 wells have been dug. Each well is 6-8 ft deep and takes a day for 2 persons to dig. Water can be pumped directly from the well to the hose used for watering the vegetables.

In early January our music team went to several private schools to promote our music tutorial program and our music studio. The effort has ended up with a partnership with one of the schools in more than one Goducate program, and has enabled several students to earn some pocket money.

The school was Morning Star Montessori School. The school management took an interest in our tutorial program, and invited our team to demonstrate their skills in singing, playing and instrument, and teaching. Naively, we expected the school’s approval immediately after the demonstrations. Instead what we got was a promise that the school would call with its decision.

Weeks, then months, passed, and we were about to give up when we received a call in the last week of February to ask us to start a voice-coaching lesson for more than 300 elementary and high school students in 2 of the school’s campuses for a performance during the forthcoming graduation ceremony.

A team of four is now coaching at Morning Star, two at each campus. Each pair will conduct 12 sessions, with each session lasting about 2 h. The team will paid around PhP 40,000 for these lessons. In addition our Harana live-music team of eight persons, four of whom are the trainers at Morning Star, will be paid another PhP 14,000 for two separate performances in the two campuses. Of the eight who are benefitting from this arrangement, 2 are Goducate staff, and the other 6 are college or high-school students.

The School management also came to visit our office to find out more about our work. They took an interest in our Alternative Learning System (ALS) program, through which we help people who have not finished their schooling to continue with their education through the Department of Education’s ALS. They have now offered us the use of two classrooms, one in each campus. This offer will enable us to start new ALS classes.

In addition, Morning Star is also discussing with us how we can partner together to do a feeding program in some government school.