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Sabah Learning Centers are community projects

Goducate believes in helping Asians to help themselves. Therefore, Goducate projects are usually community projects.

Goducate does not believe in playing the role of a charitable Santa Claus bearing gifts because this type of help breeds laziness. Worse than laziness, it robs the recipients of their dignity as useful human beings.

I was so glad when I visited our Sabah learning centers last week to see how the community was actively participating in educating their own children. When I arrived at our first center, I was glad to see that a nice coat of bright red paint had been added to the center. I was told that the parents had done this on their own accord.

As I sat to watch the welcome program that they had prepared for us that day, I was told that all the decorations were done by the community and the school. I was told that as present building was too small to hold the student body of 400 students, different households had volunteered to open their houses to serve as additional classrooms. I was especially proud to see the local mums teaching their own children – using the teaching techniques and materials that we had given to them. They looked just like the teachers in any other school in the city!

As I went to each of the 5 centers, I saw how each community was actively participating in building and running of the learning centers. In our 2nd Center, I saw that the community had added a new wall to their previously totally “open-concept” school house! They had even extended their school house with zinc sheets taken from a recently torn down nearby building. And the dads had made many more simple desks for the students.

I was so glad to see that the Goducate philosophy of helping poor Asians help themselves was no more just a dream among these “undocumented aliens” of Sabah but had become a reality.

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Sabah Goducate Learning Centers double their enrolment in 2 months!

Just 9 weeks ago, when I visited our Goducate Learning Centers in Sabah we had about 500 students enrolled (it’s impossible to give exact figures even though we register our students because parents sneak in additional kids all the time and most of our classrooms do not have walls to keep out additional kids!)

Last week week when I visited Sabah again, I heard that the present enrolment is over 1100 students – and expanding by the day. It’s just too painful to turn away mums and their children who have walked an hour in the hot sun!

Goducate had earlier set a target of 1500 students by the end of 2010 but last week we had to re-set our target to 2500 student in 10 centers by the end of this year – if funds are available. There is no shortage of children who want to learn to read and write and no shortage of mums who are willing to be trained to teach their own children. The bottle-neck is funds to pay for school supplies, teacher training, teacher allowances, visas, etc.

2500 students sounds a lot but it is really a drop in the bucket because it is estimated that there possibly 500,000 children who are unable to attend school because they are “undocumented aliens” from war-torn southern Philippines. This is possibly one of the largest unrecognized “refugee” (for want of a better word) groups in the world. Half a million children who grow up without education or discipline will definitely be huge social problem for their host country – and eventually for the neighbouring countries.

Let’s do our part to help these poor people to help themselves.

Goducate believes that every child deserves a decent education and a decent start in life!

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Weekend visit to our literacy centers in Sabah

This Friday about a dozen Goducate supporters from Singapore will fly to Sabah to visit our literacy centers. The team consists of about seven Goducate volunteer workers and 3 or 4 staff members from our corporate sponsors, MHC Asia.

The last time we visited the centers in February, there were just 2 centers with about 400 students. This time the team will visit all 5 centers with about 1000 students. These students are unable to attend normal schools because they are “undocumented aliens” who have fled from the poverty of war-torn southern Philippines to the peaceful shores of Sabah.

It will be a lightning trip over a weekend because most of the Goducate volunteers have to return to work on Monday.

We will arrive on Friday evening, in time to enjoy a lovely seafood dinner in a restaurant built over the sea. On Saturday, we will start off early to visit the centers. Two of the centers are short distances from the road, one requires a 30 minute walk up a jungle path, another requires a 20 min walk over a soggy swampy ground, and another is a balancing act on a narrow plank walkway over a swamp.

On Sunday morning the team will return home – hopefully able to share what they saw and experienced with other Singaporeans and convert them into becoming supporters of these poor children because Goducate believes that every child deserves a decent education.