Helping Asians Help Themselves
Dr Leslie Tay, one of Singapore’s most popular food bloggers (http://ieatishootipost.sg) and loyal Goducate supporter has yet again found an opportunity to raise funds for us. Continue reading “Well-known food blogger raises funds for Goducate with his book launch”
A group of Singaporeans went last week to the Philippines to see the Goducate learning centers and model farm in Laguna and the training center that is being built in Iloilo. The day after we arrived we were handed invitations to the Goducate Dayap Graduation Day to be held that very afternoon (Nov 14). The “graduands” turned out to be a special group.
Typhoon Ondoy was the most devastating typhoon in the 2009 Pacific typhoon season. Some 5000 families have had to be relocated from Manila. One of relocation sites is Dayap village in Laguna province, a couple of hours by car from Manila. There we could see many neat rows of houses that the government has provided for the victims of the typhoon.
Providing housing is one thing. Providing jobs is quite another, and one that is far from easy. And if the family has no income, the children lose out on education because even with free education, there are still the incidentals such as books, uniforms, and transport that have to be paid for.
Goducate volunteers started tutorials for the children here every Sunday afternoon, helping them with the Philippines Alternative System of education. This system has been specially devised for students who cannot attend regular school. It enables students to learn on their own and at their own pace. About 30 students registered for the tutorials. They range in educational level from grades 1-6, and a few at high school level. The houses that have yet to be completed serve as classrooms, and a little shop nearby helps by lending chairs or stools as necessary.
The graduands impressed us with their performances, and an excuse was found to reward every student with something. It was most touching to see them thrilled with what they received even if it was no more than a tube of toothpaste.
Goducate hopes to help this community of resettled people in other ways too. The model farm has been experimenting with different ways of growing vegetables. A couple of the families at Dayap have agreed to be the pioneer group for transfer of growing techniques to little backyards, and as you read this they are probably already being taught what to do. Goducate hopes that soon most of the resettled community here will be able to put their own “veg@table”.
Goducate was a part of ActivAid’s inaugural conference held last Saturday at the National University of Singapore. Goducate founder Paul Choo led one of the 15 workshops, while the co-founders and other volunteers manned the Goducate booth in the exhibition area.
ActivAid is a conference targeted at health-care students in Singapore and elsewhere to educate them about humanitarian efforts and to spur them into volunteering for such efforts. The conference is organized jointly by the National University of Singapore Medical Society and by Healthcare Expeditions International (HealthEx), a Singapore-based non-governmental organization that identifies, develops, and executes expeditions that health-care students can join to help the needy in various countries. The plan is for ActivAid conferences to be held annually.
For many people, going on a humanitarian expedition is a one-off affair, an experience of a lifetime with wonderful photo-opportunities, but then what? This kind of involvement means much effort and organization for the people on the ground in the host country and much disruption to their work, but in the long run makes little difference to the needy people out there. To drive home this point, the theme for this year’s conference was Sustainability Issues Facing Student Volunteers. Participants thus not only learnt what goes into humanitarian missions, but they were also challenged to think about how, after their return home, they can keep up the good work.
The topic for Paul Choo’s workshop was that merely doling out help to the needy is not charity. Doing so and doing things for them robs them of their dignity and self-worth and makes them overdependent on others, while giving the helpers a false sense of superiority. True, sustainable, charity is helping the needy to help themselves.