Learning Centers – Page 8 – Goducate … Go And Educate!

2010-05-282010-05-29

Water source for Goducate model farm in Laguna Philippines

Last week, our Goducate workers and Goducate volunteers finished installing a hand-pump water system for our model-farm in Laguna, Philippines. (For those city-dwellers who get water from a tap and have never used a hand-pump to get water, a hand-pump water system is one which has a lever that needs to be pumped up and down to get the water to flow. You get a free work-out while getting your water!)

The part of Laguna where our model-farm is situated is famous for its sulphurous hot-water spa-resorts. Our workers were joking that it would be good if we drilled into a hot-water source so that they could enjoy the spa-life of the rich and leisured! However, hot, sulphurous water would be disastrous for our worms (which produce our organic fertilizer) and for the crops which we hope to raise on the farm!

Since our farm is within 10 Km from Mount Makiling where there is a large Geothermal Power Plant our chances of drilling into a hot water source was very high. Most of our neighbours had hot sulphurous water from their hand-pump water systems and had to spend much time and effort to cool their water before using it for their crops or cattle.

As almost all well-drillings over 10 meters resulted in hot water, we were thankful that our drilling to 30 meters produced cool water!!
We now have a good source of water that can be used for our farm and can also be shared with our neighbours.

We are looking forward to the day when beautiful crops of leafy vegetables, brinjals, ladies fingers (okra), long beans, bitter gourds, water-melons will be produced on that farm – all fertilized by the abundant source of organic fertilizers that our worms (African night crawlers) produce.

We are looking to the day that our workers will be self-sufficient in producing food for their families and more importantly setting the example to others in the community that it is possible to use nature’s abundance (plus a little technology and diligence) to produce food for their families.

This is one of Goducate’s ways of helping poor Asians help themselves in this typhoon-prone area of the Philippines.

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2010-05-17

Herbal Soap Factory; Goducate Livelihood project in Laguna Philippines

The title “Herbal Soap Factory” sounds impressive. In most of our minds it conjures up the image of a spotless, high-tech factory with white-coated lab technicians. However, the Goducate Herbal Soap Factory is in a little wooden Goducate Learning Center building. And it is run by a few old ladies (one a widow) who have learned to make herbal soap for a livelihood.

The technique of making herbal soap has been learned by Jonathan, the Goducate Learning Center supervisor at Mabakan, Laguna, from a government sponsored course. He has since transferred the skills to these ladies. The equipment is rudimentary – a few pails, many plastic molds to contain the liquid soap, some paper to wrap the soap. The raw materials are simple – caustic soda, vegetable oil and herbal essence, eg. crushed papaya, crushed guava leaves.

The ladies patiently stir the mixture of caustic soda, oil and herbal essence for about 30 minutes before the dark brown liquid is poured into the plastic molds. When the dark brown liquid is left to cool, it turns into pure white soap! When the soap is hard enough it is knocked out of its mold and left to “mature” for a month before it can be used.

The soap is then wrapped in simple paper and sold to their neighbors for 12 pesos (about US 20 cents). The proceeds from the sale of the soap are shared between the Goducate Center, the soap makers and those who sell the soap. So far sales are satisfactory. However, efforts are being made to produce smaller pieces of soap to sell to the nearby hot-spring resorts for their guests.

Though the amount earned is small, soap-making encourages the spirit of enterprise among these people. Jonathan has also learned how to make dish-washing liquid and will be teaching the students at Goducate Learning Center to make and sell this soon.

Goducate wants to help Filipinos to help themselves through enterprise.

2010-05-142010-05-13

Fat worms produce fat long beans! (Goducate Livelihood project in Laguna, Philippines)

So far our Goducate workers have been able to produce large quantities of quality organic fertilizer from unwanted grass and vegetation using our hard-working earthworms (African night crawlers).

However, the price that our workers get from the buyers of organic fertilizer is low. This problem of being squeezed by middle-men is one of the main reasons why Asian farmers are stuck in the poverty cycle. To overcome this problem, our Goducate team is presently working with a partner to find the right markets in Manila and abroad.

Outsize organically fertilized long beans versus normal long beans

Another way we hope to bypass middle-men is to use the organic fertilizer ourselves. One of our workers tested the quality of our fertilizer by planting a row of long beans in his garden. He fertilized some of his plants with our fertilizer and the others with “normal” fertilizer. All the other conditions were identical – same seeds used, same soil, same method of planting and tending – so that the only difference was the fertilizer used.

The result was quite amazing. The plants that were fertilized with our organic fertilizer had long beans that were almost twice as long and more than twice as thick as the ones that were fertilized using “normal” fertilizers.

We will be further developing our production of organic fertilizer and growing of vegetables in our new model-farm in Laguna. We hope to encourage the poor to use the simple methods that we develop to produce good food for themselves. We will also be using these methods to teach our Goducate trainee workers in our Goducate Campsite in Iloilo to produce food for themselves.

One of Goducate’s main means to help poor Asians to help themselves is to help them to feed themselves with decent food.

Goducate believes that every child deserves decent nutrition and decent education.