Recently I visited the Goducate Training Center with some friends and supporters of Goducate from USA, Indonesia, Singapore and South Africa. They had heard about this training center and were interested to find out more about how we hoped to train future Goducate workers.
The short visit coincided with the harvest of mangoes from the huge mango trees at the Center. The lady who had sold us the land was once the top mango “exporter” of that part of the Philippines and she had planted these mango trees. She was also the one, together with her family, of planting the mahogany trees and other fruit trees at the site.
We had the opportunity of seeing the workers harvest the mangoes. As the trees are very large, they had to strap themselves to ropes and be “pulleyed” up the various branches of the tree to reach the ripening mangoes.
The tree that was being harvested while we were there yielded about a ton of export-quality mangoes. The day before we arrived, 9 tons of mangoes were harvested. These fruits are sold to dealers and the funds used to support the center.
Thanks to the foresight of the previous owner the site also has abundant timber resources (mahogany and bamboo) which is harvested as building materials for the various buildings at the site.
Since we started developing the land, we have planted thousands of fruit trees and vegetable plants on the slopes of the site.
Hopefully, they will also produce harvests that will benefit future generations of Goducate trainees.
