Category: Livelihood Training

Goducate’s tagline is “Helping the needy help themselves”. We also encourage our beneficiaries to help others. Two teachers in the Goducate literacy program in Laguna, Philippines, together with five of their students from the Alternative Learning System (ALS) program, have their own catchphrase: “If you want to help others, you can do it from a small beginning”. In the last week of August, this group started a small feeding project in a rice-farming village in Bay, in Laguna. This project is funded solely by contributions from the teachers and the ALS students. The ALS is a ladderized, modular, non-formal education program in the Philippines for people who, for whatever reason, did not complete their schooling.

Children in this rice-farming village sometimes go without breakfast. Their mothers usually give them only “brunch” because their budgets cannot stretch to two meals. Between 15 and 25 kids with ages ranging from 2-12 attend the feeding sessions that have been held every Saturday. Some of them are children of the ALS students. The feeding sessions are preceded by lessons in writing, drawing, and spelling.

Because of tight budget, the food is simple. It could be aroz caldo (porridge with chicken), or bread and champorado (a sweet chocolate rice pudding). Given their very limited resources, the teachers and ALS students have to commended for starting this project.

Twenty-six pupils from four Goducate Literacy Centers (in Maitim, Tranca, Sitio 74, Sitio Ulik) in Bay, Laguna, along with their teachers and parents, went on an educational tour on Sept 27. The purpose of this tour was to educate the pupils and their parents about the importance of rice, the stages of rice production from land preparation to consumption, and some rice varieties grown in different countries. At the same time it was a chance for the pupils and their parents from different literacy centers to get acquainted with each other.

The first stop was thus the Rice Museum of the International Rice Research Institute in Los Baños, Laguna. The children were completely awed by what they saw. They learnt that there are different varieties of rice and rice-based products. They saw the old tools and implements used by the farmers in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. And they saw exhibits of the different kinds of birds commonly found in the tropical rice fields.

This vist was also the first for the mothers and some of the teachers. Hence, they were as happy and as curious as were their children.

After the visit to the Rice Museum, the group was brought round the University of the Philippines Los Banos campus, with a stop-over at the newly-built Japanese Garden. The trip ended at the Goducate campsite in Bay for some games and for lunch.

Goducate has a scholarship program in Laguna that helps to see needy students through their tertiary education. There are 24 scholars in the program for the 2013-14 academic year. It is one way by which Goducate helps the needy help themselves. Scholars are encouraged to help others. They do so by holding tutorials every Saturday morning for younger children in Laguna. The 33 children who attend these tutorials, both in academic subjects as well as in music, were featured in the book In the Shoes of a Filipino Child published last year by Goducate.

The leader of Scholars Group, Mariane, who has also been in charge of the tutorial program, is in her senior year at the Laguna State Polytechnic University studying for her Bachelor of Secondary Education, with English as her major. She was one of a few students selected by her university to do a 6-month internship in practical teaching of English at a Vietnamese university. She left on Oct 5 to teach at the Thai Nguyen University in northern Vietnam.

Mariane may have another chance to go abroad to brush up on her English. In July a visitor from Singapore offered her an opportunity to go to Singapore when she graduates, to attend a school that he and his wife run.