Helping Asians Help Themselves
The multi-purpose hall in Goducate’s training center in Philippines is on schedule to be ready by November this year. This year’s rainy season has been unusually dry. This is favorable for our construction projects but unfavorable to our planting programs!
Once the multi-purpose hall is completed, we will take in our first batch of trainees to ‘stress test’ our camp’s facilities.
By early 2011 we hope to start training Asian community workers who can help needy Asians help themselves.
Goducate’s main training center in Iloilo, Philippines, where most of Goducate’s future community workers will be trained is fast taking shape.
The main objective of this Training Center is to produce workers who can educate Asia’s needy people to help themselves – especially in livelihood skills. As most of Asia’s poor live in rural areas, our trainees will spend much time learning modern, sustainable farming methods at the center. Of course, other livelihood skills (eg. literacy and numeracy teaching, computer skills, English for employment, engine repairs) will also be taught.
To ensure that the center will be financially sustainable in the long term, the center will also have revenue-generating projects. To take advantage of its proximity to Iloilio City and its pristine natural surrounding, eco-tourism and recreational activities are being planned.
As soon as the rice is harvested, the present area where we are experimenting with hybrid rice will be converted into a recreational lake with boating, recreational fishing and other recreational water activities. The hybrid rice will henceforth be planted in collaborators’ farms around the center.
Over the recreational lake we plan to have zip-lines, which will be the first in the province. There will also be horse-riding around the center and horse-carriage rides for families.
We also plan to have a restaurant serving food grown in the center – organic vegetables from our gardens, poultry, pork and mutton from our farm, fish caught from our lake, and fruits from our fruit trees.
We hope that the center will produce enough food for our trainees and our restaurants and that the revenue from these activities will pay for the upkeep of the center.
If Goducate Training Center does not help itself, then how can it train workers to help others help themselves?
The Goducate Training Center in Iloilo, Philippines is being developed presently. So far the following has been done: the perimeter fence around the 11.2 hectares of land, the irrigation lake and canals, deep wells, roads, plant-nursery, green-house, vermi-culture beds, activity fields, clearing of land, terracing of slopes, planting of hybrid rice, vegetables and fruit-trees. The multi-purpose hall is fast taking shape and should be ready by November (if rains do not overly hinder construction).
Hopefully, we will take in our first “pilot” batch of trainees in November/December to “stress test” the facilities.
The true challenge of all charities is sustainability. Many charitable projects fail because they are not self-sustaining – especially after the founder of the charity passes on, when donor-fatigue sets in, or when the foreigners hand over the project to locals.
As Goducate aims to help Asians help themselves by training workers who will learn how to help themselves, Goducate Training Center also aims to be self-sustaining in a few years time.
Goducate trainees at our Training Center will be eating the food that they grow – and in the process learn to be competent, practical agriculturalists. As most of Asia’s poor live in rural communities, Goducate’s future workers will be able to grow most of their own food and help the communities they serve to grow their own food too.
However, just growing food to feed the trainees is insufficient because it is expensive to maintain the center. If funds are not raised for maintenance of the center, it will eventually run down and be derelict.
As the center is located in a nice, natural surroundings with rolling hills and valleys and is only 40 minutes from Iloilo City, plans are being made to turn part of it into a recreational, eco-tourism park. The revenue from eco-tourism activities will help to pay for the on-going maintenance of the center. I will describe some of the proposed activities in my next blog.
Goducate aims to make its Training Center help itself!