Appeal – Goducate … Go And Educate!

2020-12-182020-12-19

Goducate Laguna brings aid and joy to typhoon-affected Rizal

Goducate Laguna has been providing aid to several typhoon-affected places in the Philippines. One of the places visited was the Rizal Provincial Sanitary Landfill area, about 2 hours’ drive from Goducate Laguna. The heavy rain and fierce winds brought by Typhoon Ulysses caused massive flooding, submerged houses and cars, knocked down power lines, displaced garbage and mud in Rizal. The state-of-the-art sanitary landfill site is one of the three that previously catered for solid waste from several cities of Metro Manila and Rizal. Most of the adults in the area work as garbage collectors.

*Wading in mud to salvage belongings from damaged houses*

Goducate distributed a gallon of water and six boiled eggs to each of 204 families living near the landfill site. The people were very desperate for clean water. They normally get well water but the wells had become contaminated with garbage. They also buy drinking water, but the loss of jobs during the typhoon period meant that they could not afford it.

Seeing how bad the situation was in the Rizal landfill area, Goducate Laguna returned to the area to hold a Children’s Big Day. The children were very excited and turned up without breakfast or lunch because they expected to be fed. They were given a meal of spaghetti with fried chicken. It was touching to see how the children dealt with their food, sniffing their apple to enjoy its fragrance before eating it, sharing lollipops with their parents, and saving a portion of their food to take home for their siblings.

*Distributing apples on Children’s Big Day*

The 330 children who attended the Big Day also joined in the singing of carols, enjoyed a musical, took part in games and went home with gift packs consisting of a hygiene kit, biscuits, candies, an apple and some c2 green tea. For some of the children it was the first time they had received a gift.

*Our guest writer is Gemma Abrenilla, staff member of Goducate Laguna.

2019-12-102019-12-16

Goducate Training Center in Iloilo is a regional winner in 2019 Search for Outstanding Volunteers

Camp Goducate Phils., Inc. (also known as Goducate Training Center Iloilo) has been named one of the regional winners in the 2019 Search for Outstanding Volunteers (SOV). The selection was made on Nov 22, 2019, during the 4th Quarter Meeting of the Regional Development Council (RDC), at The Venue, San Jose, Antique.

The Search for Outstanding Volunteers Regional Search Committee (SOV-RSC) is headed by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Region VI, together with the Philippine National Volunteer Service Coordination Agency (PNVSCA). The search is done every December by the PNVSCA, together with the National Volunteer Month Steering Committee and the SOV-RSCs, in line with the celebration of National Volunteer Month. It aims to promote volunteerism as a tool for development by virtue of Republic Act No. 9418 or the Volunteer Act of 2007.

Antique Governor and RDC-VI Chairperson Rhodora J. Cadiao, together with NEDA-VI Regional Director and RDC-VI Vice Chairperson, Ro-Ann A. Bacal, awarded plaques of recognition to Goducate, as well as to two other organizations and three individuals for their exemplary performance and achievements in empowering communities and promoting volunteerism as a way of life, thus contributing to nation-building.

Since 2012, Goducate Training Center Iloilo has trained and housed over 300 volunteers who now serve all over the Philippines and Asia. The proceeds of its 11.2 hectare resort located in Barangay Sto. Angel, San Miguel, Iloilo go to community-development projects in poor villages in the country. Thus, it has recently been dubbed “Resort with a Heart”.

True to its tagline “Go and Educate”, Goducate Training Center will continue its pursuit as a non-government organization in Iloilo that provides training and community-development programs and projects for the youth and various sectors to develop group after group of Asian leaders in the 21st century. In the coming years, it aims to help and empower people in all of the barangays (villages) of the Philippines.

Goducate representatives receiving the award

*Our guest writer is a community-development trainer.

2013-12-062013-12-07

Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) Report 2

I was in the Philippines from Nov 23 to 29 to see the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda). I visited North Panay, Leyte and Samar. I’ve seen poverty and suffering in many different countries over the past 30 years but I was unprepared for what I saw on this trip. For mile upon mile it looked like a super large truck had run over entire communities, farm, and the whole countryside.

Thankfully, the food situation has improved greatly thanks to humanitarian efforts of nations and charity organizations. I believe that most communities (including remote ones) have enough food at this time. However, I believe that this food supply will slowly run down as relief organizations start pulling out at the end of this year and will “dry up” in about 6 months’ time when the relief work will be handed over to the Philippines government.

As I saw the great needs, I realized that Goducate had to focus on its core-strengths of education. I saw dozens of damaged schools with roofs that had blown off. In the undamaged sections of these schools, lived many refugees who had lost their homes.

The Department of Education has declared that schools should re-open for classes. There is good intention behind this order to resume classes but in reality how can classes be conducted in roofless classrooms, or rooms occupied by refugees? No-one seemed to have an answer to this simple question!

So we decided to start Goducate Tent Schools to meet this need. Goducate’s engineering team has designed large tents that are suitable as classrooms. These will be set up in school compounds (in cooperation with the local educational authorities). If the regular teachers are still reporting for duty, then they will be the ones to teach in these tents. If not, Goducate community development workers (CDWs) will serve as relief-teachers. In addition to regular classes, our CDWs will conduct classes on agriculture, carpentry, and public health.

Goducate will provide planting materials for root-crops and vegetables, as well as the worms (African Night Crawlers) used to produce vermicompost (an organic fertilizer). Many of the affected communities are coastal fishing communities with no culture of growing food. Our CDWs will thus teach mothers and students how to produce fertilizers and how to grow vegetables.

Goducate will provide chain-saws and other tools to clear fallen trees and produce lumber from them. Our CDWs will teach carpentry skills to men and teenage male students so that they can rebuild their own houses with help from us (eg, in the form of nails and roofing materials).

Our CDWs will also teach mothers and teenage female students public health to prevent the onset of communicable diseases from mosquitos and dirty water.

In other words, Goducate Tent Schools will be both regular school classrooms and a community classrooms for relevant survival skills.

Goducate is in the process of sealing a partnership with Water Missions International to provide clean drinking water to communities.

I hope that with this project Goducate will help the helpless help themselves and that these will then move on to help others to help themselves.