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Lifepegs volunteers visit Goducate headquarters

Several of our Lifepegs volunteers have been spending part of their winter break in Singapore. Most of them are teachers of English at universities in northeast China. One of their evenings here was spent at the Goducate office. It was a time for them and the Goducate headquarters team to get to know each other, for them to tell us about their experiences in China, and for them to learn something about Goducate work outside of China.

Lifepegs is an international lifeskills activity club based in Changchun, Jilin Province. Most of its members come from the 70 or so universities in the area. On top of that there are several Lifepegs societies within some of the universities.

Lifepegs activities are geared towards providing young adults with unique opportunities for healthy relationships, essential lifeskills education, and new and exciting forms of recreation. Its tagline is “Adventures You Can Hang Your Life On”. Through the club’s various activities, Lifepegs members learn about other cultures, about networking, about management, and about leadership.

Goducate hopes that the lifeskills learnt through Lifepegs will produce people who can contribute to globalization and to helping other needy communities.

Lifepegs volunteers at Goducate headquarters
Lifepegs volunteer telling of his experiences in China
Goducate director Paul Choo updating volunteers on Goducate work outside China
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Channel News Asia film Laguna musicians again

About a year ago Channel News Asia featured Goducate’s music students for the program Once Upon a Village, which was aired earlier this year. For that program, Channel News Asia brought along Singaporean violinist Min Lee and director of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music orchestra Wang Ya Hui to assess the students, and to suggest what could be done to help improve the music project. The suggestion was to send 5 of the violinists to Singapore for a short spell of intensive training to prepare them for some music exams. The idea was that there would be a follow-up program to see how the project would have improved over the year.

Filming Elaine Mallari training violinists
Wang Ya Hui demonstrating how to walk on stage

In November, the five violinists spent 10 days in Singapore training at the Wolfgang Music Studio, during which time Channel News Asia filmed them for the follow-up program. Since Channel News Asia’s first visit, they violinists have also been receiving regular lessons from Elaine Mallari of the Manila Symphony Orchestra.

This week, Channel News Asia was back in Laguna with Wang Ya Hui to assess the musicians’ progress. During this visit Wang Ya Hui helped them and conductor Bernard prepare for a concert to raise funds to help our students continue their studies in college or high school. There is more to conducting and playing instruments in preparation for a concert. One of the things the students learnt this time was how to walk on stage!

The follow-up program is expected to be aired in Jan or Feb 2012.

Students learning how to walk on stage
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Goducate produces book of stories by children at Goducate Children’s Home

Ever wondered what it is like to be an abandoned child, to see your family split up because a parent is always drunk, to have to pick garbage to help feed the rest of the family? And when “fortunes” change as a child is admitted to a children’s home, what is it like to have to adjust to living with so many others, to keeping some kind of a routine, to having go to classes? What else bothers such a child? What touches him or her? These and many other insights can be gained from “In The Shoes of a Cambodian Child”, a book consisting of stories by the children at the Goducate Children’s Home in Cambodia.

The idea of this book is to increase awareness of what goes on in the minds of children from dysfunctional families. It is so easy to push thoughts about the poor and needy to the back of one’s mind. We hope that the stories in this book will enable readers to empathize with the children from dysfunctional families and think about helping this and many other disadvantaged groups.