Category: Insights

Many people have the heart to help the needy.

We at Goducate are thankful for all such people!

However, there are different levels of help and we at Goducate have defined 5 levels:

1. Happy — The first level of help is to make someone happy (eg. give a toy, a pair of shoes). This type of help is appropriate for newcomers because it involves little commitment and no skills. However, the benefit to the recipient is often only a short period of happiness.

2. Help — This is the second level of help that requires more commitment and some skills (eg. teaching how to speak English, teaching to play a musical instrument). Most people who offer such help do so for a short period of time (say, a week). The recipient has been informed/ instructed but is usually unable to master the skill in this short period of time. Therefore, the benefit from such help is often short-lived.

3, Hand-holding — This is the third level of help, which requires a much greater level of commitment of time. The teacher/instructor not only teaches the recipient but continues to “hold his hands” until the recipient masters the subject (eg. English phrases, guitar chords). In other words, the helper is not just satisfied with merely transmitting the information but is also concerned that the recipient “gets it” and is able to confidently do “something useful” with it.

4. Hand-over — This fourth level of help requires the helper to understand the importance of giving the others enough self-esteem so that the recipient is not perpetually dependent on help from outsiders. For example, the guitar student is told that he is now ready to take over as the new teacher. In other words, the task of teaching guitar chords is now handed over to him. The “helpless person” is empowered to be a “helper.”

5. Hand-over, hand-over — The fifth level of help is when the newly trained teacher clearly understands that his task is to train another layer and hand-over to the new layer not only skills and but also an understanding of the importance os sequential handing over from layer to layer. When this 5th level of help is in place, then a sustainable work has been implemented. Without this 5th level of help, most projects will soon fizzle out.

Goducate aims to implement projects that incorporate all 5 levels of help.

Goducate aims to help needy Asians help themselves in a sustainable way

Goducate’s philosophy is to “help needy Asians help themselves” by Going and Educating them—and then encouraging them to help others with what they’ve learned. We believe that this is better than just giving them something or some help.

However, there are certain circumstances in which we have to provide help that is not educational or help that they can then use to help others. For example, in emergencies timely help is often more appropriate then education. If a person is starving because of a flood, it’s more appropriate to feed him first before attempting to teach him how to produce more crops from his farm.

In our work with needy communities, we’ve often found that we need to rectify medical and dental problems before we can move on to “go and educate” them how to help themselves, and then help others. In some of the communities that we work in (eg, Sabah) the majority of people have never ever seen a doctor or a dentist. Chronic debilitating illnesses and rotting teeth are part of their lives. Someone with a toothache (without Panadols or Aspirins) is not able to learn anything effectively.

When we first sent in a dental team to Sabah, we ran out of local anesthetic on the first day of our work because hundreds of people came—with many requesting to have all their teeth (rotten or good) pulled out. While the dentists were at work, they realized that many of their patients also had medical and surgical problems that needed urgent treatment, but they lacked the medicines and surgical instruments needed to help them. Future teams will include general surgeons.

We are grateful for a dedicated team of volunteer dentists, doctors, and surgeons from Iloilo, Philippines, who offer their skills regularly to help the needy.

A kind sponsor of Goducate, Kenneth Aw, through his company KSurgical Pte Ltd, has also given us the dental and surgical instruments needed for our work.