Category: Cambodia

With additions to the staff, the Goducate Children’s Home in Cambodia is now busy implementing new projects. One of the projects that the home wishes to jump start is organic farming. A fertilizer used by most successful organic farmers is vermicast, the manure produced by earthworms. Vermiculture is the art of growing worms, which in turn produce the vermicast..

Five months ago, with the help of Goducate’s consultant for agriculture, the home started vermiculture with 20 earthworms of the African night crawler species, obtained from the Goducate Training Center in Iloilo, Philippines. The older boys at the Home are being trained in vermiculture, and the estimated population of African Night crawlers is 2000. In a year’s time, there should be enough worms to produce sufficient vermicast to satisfy the fertilizer needs of the children’s vegetable farm, which occupies about 120 sq m of the grounds at the Children’s Home. In another year’s time, we expect to have sufficient vermicast to sell to the public.

The plan also is to include the girls in the training in vermiculture.

The children at the Goducate Children’s Home not only attend school daily but also receive training in livelihood skills. Both the boys and the girls learn agricultural skills, which should come in useful when they return to their home villages. The older boys also learn some engineering and construction skills. A workshop for boys was completed in Sept 2012. The older girls have been learning to bake, and the arrival of community development workers from the Goducate Training Center in the Philippines has enabled them to widen the range of delicacies they can prepare.

A girls’ workshop is now under construction, and should be completed by the end of the year. We plan to introduce lessons in sewing, basic cosmetology, and other livelihood skills.

In recent months, teams of staff and older children from the Home have been going out to different communities to teach English. Those who attend these English classes can also benefit from learning livelihood skills. Thus we plan to use the workshop to train both residents and non-residents of the Home.

Most of the children at the Goducate Children’s Home come from dysfunctional families. They may have been abandoned by parents who have left home to work abroad or for some other reason, or who are abusive. At the home boys outnumber girl primarily because it is the custom for girls to stay at home to learn how to keep house, and then to marry early. Under normal circumstances, boys are expected to be the breadwinner and to help the family should the father die.

The existing boys’ dormitory was intended for 15-18 boys, and it has a small room for the guardian. However, it is housing 23 boys and 5 guardians.

Some Goducate supporters who visited the Home realized the need for more space, and have raised funds for the new dormitory. Construction began 3 months ago, and the aim is to complete the building by December.