Category: Training Center

This year’s trainees at Goducate Training Center in Iloilo, Philippines, will be graduating in December. There are almost 50 of them who would have finished their 6-month training by Dec 14.

About 20 of them will be serving as community development workers in China, Indonesia, and Cambodia. Another 5 of them will join Goducate Training Center as staff. And the rest will return to serve in their communities in different parts of the Philippines.

In 2013, Goducate Training Center will be taking in 2 batches of students. The first batch will be trained from January to May to be teachers of English. The will undergo courses such as TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), accent neutralization, counselling, community work, cross-cultural studies, and mentoring. After completing their training, they will be sent to needy communities in other Asian countries to serve as English teachers.

The second batch of trainees will be trained from June to December to be community development workers. In addition to the training that the English teachers will receive, they will receive training in agriculture. Since many of the communities that they will serve are backward rural communities struggling to feed themselves, an understanding of agriculture is vital.

To prepare for 2013, Goducate Training Center has built additional dormitories and a mess-hall. The ladies’ dormitory will be able to house about 70 trainees and the men’s dormitory about 35. The mess-hall will seat about 70 trainees for meals.

As Goducate’s work expands, the demand for English teachers and community development workers continues to grow. Goducate Training Center must continue to produce enough workers to help needy Asians help themselves.

 

 

Last week Goducate Training Center (GTC) held its twice-yearly Leadership Training for young people interested in learning to serve their communities.

80 young people from the Visayas (the “central” part of the Philippine islands) attended the sessions on topics such as “The Leader and the World”, “The Mission of the Leader”, and “The Leader under conflict.” The most interesting and beneficial part of their training is their daily practical sessions serving in the communities around Goducate Training Center. This gives them a real taste of the joys and struggles of community service.

It is our hope that after these 5 days of training, all the participants will be able to serve their communities more effectively, and that some of them will be led to consider being full-time community development workers (CDWs) and enroll for the full-time 6-month CDW course at the Goducate Training Center.

We need to train more CDWs to help Asians help themselves.

Teaching literacy is likely to be one of the common tasks that Goducate’s community development workers will have to do when they finish their training and are sent to work among the needy. Even in places where the population is entitled to free state education, many children are unable to go to school, at least not regularly, because the family cannot afford the incidentals such as books, uniforms, or transport, or because the children have to be pulled out to help earn a living or look after younger sibs.

For their practical training in teaching literacy, students at the Goducate Training Center (GTC) in Iloilo go out into the neighbouring communities on Saturdays to conduct classes in literacy.

Recently I spent a couple of days at the Goducate Training Center and was impressed by how conscientiously and enthusiastically the trainees prepared for these sessions in the community. They are trained not to teach didactically. Instead, they spend much effort preparing how to capture their students’ interest and attention through creative visuals, songs, and games. Lunch breaks were used to prepare the visuals, and time was set aside to practise thoroughly how they would deliver their lessons. It was good to see them enjoying their practice. Their enthusiasm should rub off on their students.