Goducate’s mission is to help educate people so that
they can escape lives of helplessness and uselessness. However, hungry children
will find it difficult to absorb any form of education. Thus, in some places feeding
programs have become a part of Goducate’s work (see blogs of July 2,2021, and
Mar 18, 2022).
On June 24, 2022, a team from Singapore visited three Goducate feeding centers in Laguna, Philippines, and were entertained by performances by the children. Feeding at these centers, generally three times a week, is combined with an educational program.
Goducate used to hold
weekly Happy Happy English (HHE) classes for foreign workers in their
dormitories. After these classes stopped, the ex-HHE students and teachers met
up monthly for lunch, chats, and some games based on conversational English.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic led to restrictions on movement and gatherings,
so these meetings had to stop.
However, on June12, when the workers were still confined to their dormitories, we met up on Zoom. Naturally we could not have lunch together then, but the Zoom meeting enabled us to catch up with the ex-students, and to have an enjoyable time with them over the chats and the quizzes.
A team of Goducate musicians from the Philippines, and a team of children from Indonesia trained in Goducate’s Sing Your English (SYE) program were in Singapore to perform at MHC Asia Group Pte Ltd’s 25th anniversary dinner on Oct 7.
Musicians at MHC 25th
SYE team performing
The trip to Singapore was an opportunity that the children might otherwise never have to travel out of their country. Through the generosity of Dr Low Lee Yong, founder and CEO of MHC, the children also had a few days enjoying Singapore’s attractions.
Performers having fun at end of program
The music program in Laguna, Philippines, began as a means of attracting out-of-school youth back into education by offering lessons on playing the recorder. It has grown into successful program, with children learning how to play a whole range of instruments. Not only has the team been invited to play at various events, but many individuals have obtained university scholarships based on their musical ability, and two are now university students majoring in music.
The SYE program is a popular program in Indonesia for giving children the confidence to speak English. Although students learn English in school, most do not use the language out of class, but learning the language through song somehow gets them singing English sentences wherever they happen to be.
For its 25th anniversary, MHC also donated a total of Sing$1 million to several organizations. Goducate, which received Sing$300,000, was the largest recipient.
