Last Saturday some 50 food connoisseurs spent the afternoon enjoying a BBQ Cookout and supporting Goducate at the same time. The fundraiser was organized by foodblogger Dr Leslie Tay of ieatishootipost.sg, who has supported Goducate by holding such events for us several times in the past. Special thanks go the main sponsor for the event, Swiss Butchery, which sponsored the venue and the meats.
Diners were offered a gustatory array of different meats such as Wagyu Beef Rump, Smoked Iberico Pulled Pork (marinated for 10 hours), Smoked beef brisket, duck hearts, Mahi Mahi, Tuna and more!
The event was complemented by “Barbeducation “ on BBQ and smoking techniques. The ambience was completed with Sean Harrison’s versatile voice as he serenaded diners with old-time classics.
What shall I have?What was Dr Tay saying?Barbeducation time
A couple of months ago Goducate started We-Chat English, a program aimed at helping migrants integrate into Singapore society. Although aimed largely at migrants, this program of teaching functional English is also open to locals, to help the social integration process.
There is another group of migrants whose needs are different. They work long hours and live in huge dormitory complexes that house thousands of workers and that are generally situated very far from social amenities—for example, in the middle of vast industrial estates. Their daily routine is one of being bussed to work early in the morning and back late in the evening. Some have dinner at their place of work before returning to the dormitory, whereas others get back and start cooking their evening meal. Then it is practically time for bed. On Sundays, they can be bussed into town, or hang around the dorm complexes doing nothing or using the recreational facilities to watch movies or play some type of sport.
In early December there was a riot in town that involved some of these migrant workers, so visits to town have been curtailed for the time being, and dormitory managers have been instructed to provide more programs for the residents. Although Goducate’s mission is to help through education and training, our assessment is that what these workers need for now is entertainment rather than education. Thus, to start off with, we have devised an “edutainment” program called Happy Happy English for them. We will offer more conventional teaching later on.
The program takes them on a “virtual tour” to see some aspects of Singapore. The video is accompanied by people on stage to lead singing and dancing. At certain points in the video, the scene is frozen, and a relevant English phrase is taught, with the audience being encouraged to shout out the phrase with the facilitators who are on stage.
For the launch of this program last Saturday at a dormitory in the far west of Singapore, the workers were taken on a tour of Universal Studios. The program was very well received by the hundreds who came to be “edutained”, especially those workers from the Indian subcontinent. Workers from this region make up about 80% of the dormitory residents. They were only too keen to join in the singing and dancing. If anything, they found the hour-long program too short.
To make the residents feel welcome in Singapore, Goducate volunteers apart from the edutainment team also go along to mingle and chat with the residents before and after the show.
Happy Happy English is transferable and we hope to bring the program to other dormitories.
Going on the tourThe spectatorsSpectators join Goducate team on stageSpectators take pictures with mascots
I was in the Philippines from Nov 23 to 29 to see the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda). I visited North Panay, Leyte and Samar. I’ve seen poverty and suffering in many different countries over the past 30 years but I was unprepared for what I saw on this trip. For mile upon mile it looked like a super large truck had run over entire communities, farm, and the whole countryside.
Thankfully, the food situation has improved greatly thanks to humanitarian efforts of nations and charity organizations. I believe that most communities (including remote ones) have enough food at this time. However, I believe that this food supply will slowly run down as relief organizations start pulling out at the end of this year and will “dry up” in about 6 months’ time when the relief work will be handed over to the Philippines government.
As I saw the great needs, I realized that Goducate had to focus on its core-strengths of education. I saw dozens of damaged schools with roofs that had blown off. In the undamaged sections of these schools, lived many refugees who had lost their homes.
The Department of Education has declared that schools should re-open for classes. There is good intention behind this order to resume classes but in reality how can classes be conducted in roofless classrooms, or rooms occupied by refugees? No-one seemed to have an answer to this simple question!
So we decided to start Goducate Tent Schools to meet this need. Goducate’s engineering team has designed large tents that are suitable as classrooms. These will be set up in school compounds (in cooperation with the local educational authorities). If the regular teachers are still reporting for duty, then they will be the ones to teach in these tents. If not, Goducate community development workers (CDWs) will serve as relief-teachers. In addition to regular classes, our CDWs will conduct classes on agriculture, carpentry, and public health.
Goducate will provide planting materials for root-crops and vegetables, as well as the worms (African Night Crawlers) used to produce vermicompost (an organic fertilizer). Many of the affected communities are coastal fishing communities with no culture of growing food. Our CDWs will thus teach mothers and students how to produce fertilizers and how to grow vegetables.
Goducate will provide chain-saws and other tools to clear fallen trees and produce lumber from them. Our CDWs will teach carpentry skills to men and teenage male students so that they can rebuild their own houses with help from us (eg, in the form of nails and roofing materials).
Our CDWs will also teach mothers and teenage female students public health to prevent the onset of communicable diseases from mosquitos and dirty water.
In other words, Goducate Tent Schools will be both regular school classrooms and a community classrooms for relevant survival skills.
Goducate is in the process of sealing a partnership with Water Missions International to provide clean drinking water to communities.
I hope that with this project Goducate will help the helpless help themselves and that these will then move on to help others to help themselves.
Damaged schoolhouseDamaged community clinicDesign of Goducate Tent School
