Category: Livelihood Training

Goducate’s tagline is Helping Asians Help Themselves. So Goducate has to walk the talk and try to be as self-sustainable as possible.

Some Goducate workers in Laguna have been supplementing their allowances through different livelihood projects, such as through soapmaking, through producing vermicompost, or through giving music lessons. Those making vermicompost have been producing about 50 sacks of such compost a month (250 kg/ month), but are now hoping to scale up production to meet the orders from a client who wants 200 sacks a month. Scaling up would mean having the capital for the raw materials.

Recently two new livelihood projects were started. Both produce cakes for local schools and food outlets.

In October Jonatan (who started the soapmaking project several years back) and his wife started producing home-made rice cakes. Starting humbly with a capital of 100 peso ($2.25) to produce 45 pieces, production has reached 320 pieces a day. Not only does this work give the couple a weekly profit equivalent to about half the basic minimum weekly wage for a Filipino, but also there is enough work for them to outsource some of the production to a few Goducate colleagues.

Also in October, another staff member, Arjay, and his wife Nancy started making cakes from sweet purple yam. The idea of working with purple yam came to Arjay when he noticed the purple color of a 100 peso note. 100 peso was the only money they couple had left at that time. With a capital of 150 peso, they produced 10 pieces. Now they are producing an average of 40 pieces a day and earn nearly half the basic minimum weekly wage for a Filipino.
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Goducate income-generating projects are geared not only to our staff. 5 of our sewing machines are being used by the community to produce 45 dozen elementary-school uniforms per week, whereas machinists at our sewing center in town have been trying to fulfil a 2-month order for 300 sets of uniforms for a private universities.

Goducate Laguna held its 2nd music camp at the Goducate Laguna Campsite in Pupuy, Bay, from Oct 30 to Nov 1. Unlike the first camp, which was held over 2 days for both the senior and junior orchestras (see Aug 29 blog), this one was a more intensive camp confined to only some of the senior players. As before, the orchestra was very unbalanced, made worse by the fact that not all the 12 violinists who had signed up for the camp turned up. Thus we ended up with 9 violinists (3 first violinists & 6 second violinists), 1 cellist, 1 violist, and 1 double-bass player.

Although the camp was held over 3 days, I spent 6 days in Laguna with the music group as a whole, and especially with the core group. Thus there were also meetings, teaching sessions on the Overview of Music Notation, as well as 2 evenings of watching the video Kung-fu Panda, which offers some precious life lessons such as:

• We must believe in ourselves and in the people we are mentoring
• There are no accidents in life’s events
• Beware of being over-confidence and conceit
• Do not under-estimate your enemy because looks can be deceiving
• There are no secret ingredients in life because there are no short cuts, and we must be willing to work hard and take the hard knocks in life
• To fulfil our destiny, we must let go of our illusion of control
• There is no good or bad news because it depends on how one looks at it
• An effective teacher must know what really motivates the student and adjust the mode of teaching to make the student hungry.
• A true warrior never quits.
• The mark of a true hero is humility.

Those attending the camp had new music to work on—namely, Mozart Mix, Fun for Fiddlers, Syncopated Clock, Little Russian March, as well as 2 Christmas pieces (Deck the Hall, and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas). The camp culminated in a concert for family members of the players. One of the items, Little Russian March, was conducted by Bernard, my conducting student, who did a good job.

The players enjoyed the camp, which resulted in definite improvements in playing skill and other skills— such as tackling technically difficult passages, sight-reading techniques, attention to details (such as intonation, change of keys, dynamics, articulation. They also increased their knowledge of musical terms.

One of the items discussed at the debrief was to look into means of improving the bad instruments mix, which is the result of a shortage of violas and cellos. The music group was thus urged to look into fund-raising efforts to purchase such instruments, after which the instructors can start recruiting the students for these instruments.

 

*Our guest writer is Peter Yan, Goducate Laguna’s Singapore-based music director