Category: Livelihood Training

When a new literacy center was started at Ulik, Mabacan, in Laguna Province, in June 2012, it consisted of little more than tarpaulin strung over a few poles. It was a branch of another Goducate literacy center in Mabacan that was opened in 2011.

In October 2012, construction work began on a more permanent building. The building has now been completed. During the construction period, the students attended classes at another Goducate literacy center. The center is headed by a Goducate worker, aided by a volunteer mother, and is currently attended by 9 nursery-school students.

The plan is to use the center for other other classes as well, such as tutorials for older children, or music classes. As with other Goducate centers, the aim is to help children in the community develop a passion for learning.

Knowing the learning needs of children, their learning abilities, and their learning styles will help teachers in designing a curriculum that will achieve optimum learning.

Last week, as a basis for implementing a community-based literacy program, we (a Goducate team of literacy teachers) administered a simple diagnostic test that we devised to the children and teens in Tagumpay, an urban village of about 2000 people on the shores of Laguna de Bay affected by the floods brought on by typhoon Hagabat and other typhoons. The test consisted of reading, coloring, and working out a word puzzle. The reading and word puzzle tests were designed for the elementary graders (ages 7-13), while the coloring and color identification exercises were administered to the nursery and preparatory grade children.

26 children participated in the diagnostic tests, which took place either in a small house of one of the residents, or by the way side. Some action songs and games were also used to assess the students’ ability to follow instructions and styles of learning.

We found that preparatory-grade pupils have difficulty in coloring the drawing sheets and in identifying the colors. Out of the 10 elementary-grade pupils aged 7-9, 7 had difficulty in reading. For the 10-13 year olds, lessons in correct pronunciation, reading comprehension, and vocabulary will be appropriate. We will now develop a curriculum appropriate for the community.

We had been in touch with this community some months back when they were first flooded out. Then we had informal gatherings with the children and teens telling them stories, facilitating games, and teaching them action songs. Some of us were then sent to the Goducate Training Center in Iloilo for a spell of training. On our re-establishing contact with the community, one mother said, “Before, you would look for these children. But now they are coming to you”.

We intend to bring in the mothers as our partners in the literacy program because they know better than us their children’s study habits and school performance. The mothers are busy with their household chores, but we intend to do a household survey to give us a glimpse of the socio-economic profiles of the families there, and then to plan a schedules so that the mothers can take an active part in their children’s education.

When the women in Laguna making decorative items out of scrap paper strips received an order for 1000 pieces of their handicraft from a shop in San Pablo City a couple of months ago, it was seen as a huge step forward for them. They have had another boost with the recent festive season. A gift shop in Divisoria Manila, a market district in Manila, placed an order for 20,000 pieces.

To meet this order a Goducate Literacy Center was turned into a temporary stockroom and workshop for a week, during which classes for the children were held in the open. The women who worked at the center were victims of Typhoon Hagabat, whom Goducate has been helping.

Women from the local community who had been taught earlier how to make these decorative items worked from home. When I saw the little daughter of one of these women come to the center to collect material for her mother, it occurred to me that this project is also teaching little children how to help their parents in a simple way.

A new project that has been started is a tailoring project. A Goducate volunteer who used to be a dressmaker was asked by a ready-to-wear store to supply blouses for a school uniform. She decided to take this opportunity to give other women in the community a chance to earn a living and has started to teach some women how to sew. The project is hampered by the limited number and type of sewing machines they have. Thus only three women, one of them an experienced dressmaker, are sewing the blouses, and they can undertake to deliver only 86 pieces a week.