The Goducate Orchestra in Laguna, The Philippines, was invited to play at a shopping mall on Dec 22. It was good exposure for the orchestra. Shoppers stayed back not just to take photographs with the members of the orchestra, but also to invite the orchestra to play for private functions and also to enquire about possible tuition. We are in the process of trying to rent premises for a studio. When the studio is ready, the members of the orchestra will be able to use the place to give music lessons and thus earn some money for their living expenses and school allowances.
The mall gave the orchestra a grocery voucher worth PHP3000 ($68), which was used for a party to celebrate hitting the target of the fund-raising concert, Concert for a Cause, which was held earlier in December and which raised PHP33,700, sufficient to support 4 college students for a year.
The mall has also invited the orchestra to play again there in February.
In mid- November, Vic and Ric, the Goducate agricultural consultants from Iloilo visited the newly extended model farm to give our workers a short training session. Workers and volunteers soon got to work preparing plots and raised beds and planting a wide range of vegetables, including sweet corn, bell peppers, tomatoes, calamansi, papayas, string beans, bittergourds, “pechay”, okra, eggplants, and cucumbers. A return visit was made in early December to assess progress.
The scanty rainfall meant that much effort had to be put into manual watering of the plants. The efforts have been rewarded, with some of the plants starting to bear fruit by mid December.
The farm has also been experimenting with hydroponic gardening, or the use of water and a nutrient solution rather than soil for the growing of vegetable. This method saves on weeding and the use of expensive fertilizer. In addition, no tracts of land are needed. The plants can be grown in trash such as plastic bottles and Styrofoam containers.
Fetching water from improvised reservoirBittergourd bearing fruit at 1 monthLettuce being grown hydroponically
Goducate’s mission is to help the needy help themselves. But we would also like them to give to other needy people what they themselves have received in the way of teaching, training, and mentoring. In this way a movement is created, so that each group of beneficiaries can become leaders who go on to transform the lives of others in need.
Many of the youth in Laguna who have benefited from the Goducate music program are spending much of their free time training newer music students. Some train students in their own town or village, but some travel a distance to do so.
Take 14-year-old Matthew, for instance. He walks 3 km on Saturday afternoons to Mabakan area to teach 4 students the violin on a voluntary basis. However, sometimes the mothers pool together to give him PHP150 ($3.40). When Channel News Asia was there filming the Goducate students for part 2 of Once Upon A Village, a program that will be aired in the next month or two, he was asked, “What is your goal for your students?” He replied, “For them to use the talent I share in pursuing their dreams and ambitions in life; like the hope I’m seeing after I finish high school (to get into a college school). I want them also to go abroad like me and experience the life in some other countries”. He was referring to the 10 days of training he had in Singapore, for which he was selected during the filming of part 1 of Once Upon a Village early this year.
Matthew's students walking to the learning centerMelissa with her students
Another example is Melissa, also 14, who also used to go by bus to Talahiban to train some students, but since her family moved there, she has more time to spend on teaching. She has 8 violin students, and 5 who are learning the recorder, but who hope to progress to some other instrument later on. The students are so eager to learn that they are often still at the learning center at 10 pm.
