Category: Children’s Home

The children at the Goducate Children’s Home in Cambodia are learning several livelihood skills that they can apply when they leave the Home and return to their communities. One advantage they have over other children in Cambodia is their education in English. To give them on-the-job training in perhaps starting English-learning centers, and to help others in the community, a team from the Home has been going to the neighboring areas to hold English-language classes. The team is made up of 4 teachers from the Goducate Children’s Home and 7 of the older children.

These English classes have been held in three areas, either once or twice a week.The classes are held in the open, with the students sitting on chairs provided by the residents there, who welcome the chance for their children to learn English. Most of the students are children aged 5 to 7.

The classes are not only helping the children at the Home to help themselves when they return to their communities, but they are also teaching them how to help others.

Talk about baseball to the kids in the Goducate Children’s Home (and probably elsewhere) in Cambodia and they will simply be disinterested. But show them the gear, teach them the baseball rules, explain the mechanics, let them have their first taste of the game at the diamond field, and they will so awe-struck and excited that they will keep badgering you with their new mantra: “Let’s play ball!”

Two months ago, the US Navy Seventh Fleet gave the Goducate Children’s Home with an assortment of supplies and sports equipment, including some baseball gear. 2 years ago, during the second phase of Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) in Cambodia, some members of the US Navy, among them, musicians of the Seventh Fleet Orient Band Express, visited the Goducate Children’s Home. They played music with the children and involved them in basketball and soccer games as part of their community service project.

In Cambodia, however, the national game is soccer, and the youth have not been exposed to baseball. To broaden their knowledge of sports, during my recent visit to the Home, I had a baseball session with the boys. 22 boys, aged 5-17, sgathered at the improvised diamond field for baseball lessons and impromptu practice. Two teams were then constituted at 11 players per team, with 9 in the field—pitcher catcher, 4 infielders, 3 outfielders—and two backup infielders. It was confusing and funny at first but the first tryout and succeeding innings at the diamond field were very instructive and exhilarating for everyone.

 

Following the Goducate agriculture consultant’s visit to the Cambodia Goducate Children’s Home in August, the Home recently started livestock farming with a new piggery and the purchase of 18 piglets.

Will, a Filipino community development worker, started his tenure at the Home (together with the new teachers Gene and Sheila) at the beginning of September, and he has been placed in charge of the agriculture and farming.

A nursery with lots of baby plants have also been set up, and the Home administrators will purchase vermicomposting worms (the African Night Crawlers) from nearby Thailand to prepare the soil for larger scale farming of crops.