Indonesia – Page 22 – Goducate … Go And Educate!

2009-12-162009-12-14

Goducate Coordinating Center – a place to bring your friends!

MHC Management staff handing over the two vans to the Goducate Children's Home in Cambodia

The Goducate Coordinating Center is situated in the research hub of Singapore. Among its “neighbours” are the National University of Singapore (Singapore’s premier university), and Biopolis and Fusionopolis (which are two centers that house Singapore’s cutting-edge research organizations).

Goducate has been fortunate to get the use of this office space, through the kind generosity of one of our major corporate sponsors, a cutting-edge health-care group called MHC Asia Group Pte Ltd. MHC has not only provided this valuable space to us but also been a very generous donor to several of Goducate projects in Sabah (East Malaysia), Cambodia and Indonesia.

MHC staff teaching children at the Goducate Learning Center in Batam Indonesia

Several of their board members and staff have even visited our projects on the field. Earlier this year a MHC team was sent to Indonesia to teach English and provide basic medical screening. As Goducate lacks many of the IT and other high-tech skills needed to reach the world, we have been fortunate to have the support of specialists from MHC. MHC is indeed a model corporate sponsor that not only provides much needed funds for Goducate but also encourages its staff to be involved in charity work.

Our center has been designed with the purpose of being a command-center where we daily meet to dream, plan and execute our battle against poverty and hopelessness. The many photos of poor people surrounding us as we meet are a constant challenge to us of the importance and urgency of our work. And the many smiling faces in the photos that surround us are a constant encouragement to us as we face what seem like insurmountable difficulties.

I believe the same impact will be felt by all those that visit our center. Therefore, I believe that it is an ideal place to invite our friends to meet at the Goducate center. So if you have to meet someone in the neighbourhood (say, the National University of Singapore, Biopolis or Fusionopolis), then make the Goducate Center your meeting place! You may turn your meeting from one that is social or mundane into one that is life-changing!

2009-11-302009-11-30

Goducate’s new learning center in Batu Aji Batam

Batam is Indonesia’s “SEZ” (Special Economic Zone). Hundreds of multinational companies (MNC’s) have factories on this island. In the past two decades, almost a million people (mostly from other parts of Indonesia) have come to Batam to look for work.

Many of them eventually bring their families over and settle down in Batam. Because almost every one on this island is a migrant, Batam has the feel of a frontier town. Needless to say, most of these migrants face many challenges as they try to cope in a new environment, learn new skills, etc.

Goducate started its first learning center in Batam in Punggur, to meet the needs of the poorer migrants. This center provides English, computer and music classes for both school-age students and adults.

Presently, over a hundred regular students attend its classes throughout the week. A Singapore health-care organization, MHC Asia Group (Singapore) generously supports this center – not only financially but also by sending its staff over to help teach the students and to provide medical care.

Encouraged by the success of this center, Goducate decided to start a second center in a much larger town called Batu Aji. Again, MHC Asia Group stepped up to provide advice, encouragement and finances. Two months ago a large shop-house right in the “heart” of the town was rented and extensively renovated.

Goducate expects this center to attract hundreds of people because of the large population in Batu Aji and the lack of free education for the migrants. Goducate expects to start operations at the end of November and provide kindergarten classes, English, computer classes and other livelihood programs.

Thankfully, some excellent teachers have offered their services to help us to develop our curricula and training programs.

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2009-11-252011-11-25

Settling in nicely into their new home

Two months ago, Goducate sent a team of 11 English teachers from 5 countries to teach English at the Jogjakarta School of Environmental Engineering (called Sekolah Tinggi Teknik Lingkungan or STTL in Bahasa Indonesia).

Jogjakarta is the campus capital of Indonesia – with over 100 tertiary institutions of higher learning, attracting students from all over Indonesia.

Most of the students of STTL come from the poorer provinces of eastern Indonesia – and the objective of this school is that most of their graduates will return to their provinces to help improve the infrastructure of their home-places (particularly, to help electrify their home-places).

Heading the team at STTL is Prof. L E Redick, who is the Director of our English center, which is called the International Center of English Excellence (ICEE). The rest of team consists of our Head Teacher from India, 2 Filipinas, 2 Singaporeans, 3 Americans, 1 Malaysian and 1 Indonesian. Their task is to make STTL a center for English excellence.

The team has settled nicely into the comfortable on-campus accommodation provided by STTL. They are busy teaching both the faculty and students to upgrade their English and in the process have made many new Indonesian friends and built wonderful bridges into the lives of their students – many of whom will be the future leaders of Indonesia.

News of their good work is spreading and other universities in different parts of Indonesia have already approached us to start similar programs in their universities.

Indonesia is an emerging country with a great future.

Indonesia welcomes us to help them!