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Well-known food blogger raises funds for Goducate

Dr Leslie Tay, the founder of one of Singapore’s most popular food blog ieatishootipost.sg, is a good friend and supporter of Goducate.

He visited our literacy centers in Sabah earlier this year and has since been a firm supporter of that work.

He has organized a fund-raising dinner this Friday, featuring a favorite chef called Gen Shu, who has offered to donate a part of the dinner ($10 per diner) to Goducate.

When our corporate sponsor, MHC Asia, heard about this, they offered to match every dollar raised with another dollar in donations!

We are hoping to raise enough to purchase a vehicle for our literacy centers in Sabah!

To sponsor a van, please click here.

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Poor children at the literacy centre; two girls without parents

 “Help, please help! Your younger sister was cooking food by herself”, shouting by the uneasy neighbour who went inside the class to call up the eldest sister.

The two sisters
The two sisters

The eldest sister was 10 years old and attending class in one of our Goducate centers, learning how to read and write. The youngest sister, 5 years old, had been left alone in the house after attending the first period class.

When she went home, she felt very hungry because of not having breakfast earlier so she decided to cook. “She is good in opening the gasoline tank”, said the uneasy neighbour. When she saw the girl cooking through a window, she is very concerned what might happen – “I tried to open the door of their house but it was locked so I kept knocking but the girl don’t want to open it because she’s afraid of me but still the gas tank was open, I was worried it might be the cause of fire!”.

So the eldest sister hurriedly went home and was able to stop the youngest sister. She cooked the food for her sister and went back to the center to learn but this time she brought along her sister who was full now in stomach. “Thanks for the fast response of the concerned mother who lives nearby”, said one neighbor.

I wondered and asked “where are the parents of these two girls?” One mother who was our teacher in our center answered me; these two girls are left by their father who was working in a construction site to earn extra money not just for food but also for the release of his wife who was in jail. In spite of the risks; parents are still willing to let their children go to the center to learn just like the father of these two girls. So our teachers was giving their best also to double their time to educate the children with love so that whatever may happen; these children were able to survive the challenges of life.

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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.