Philippines – Page 45 – Goducate … Go And Educate!

2015-02-202015-02-23

Goducate and partners embark on regular health and feeding program in Laguna, Philippines

In August 2013, Goducate partnered with Project Luke Foundation to offer some medical help to people around the Goducate center in Laguna, Philippines. This partnership with Project Luke Foundation was firmed up last November, Goducate signed a partnership with the Foundation and with Interchemex, a pharmaceutical company in the Philippines, to serve the community through helping them with their health needs.

Within weeks of signing the partnership, a session was conducted at the Goducate Training Center Laguna on December 22, 2014. It catered to those who had been affected by Typhoon Glenda (in July) as well as some people from other villages. More than 350 people attended the clinic. The volunteers at the event included local health workers, staff from the Philippines National Police Force in our municipality, as well as the students receiving bursaries from Goducate.

Then on January 3 this year, we conducted another session in the town of Calamba, about 45 minutes away from us. Again, members of the police force helped out. In this area there are about 100 informal family settlers. Most of the children and young people are not attending school.

Because so many of the children in the area are undernourished, and because of the poor state of health of the elderly, we shall be conducting monthly clinics there, as well as a feeding program for the children..

2015-02-13

Goducate community development workers are now certified as ALS facilitators

Illiteracy in rural areas is one of the major concerns in the Philippines. Many Filipinos do not have a chance of going to school for their basic education, or they have to leave school early, because of poverty or lack of schools and teachers in their communities.

Goducate’s mission is to Go and Educate people who otherwise have no access to education, so that they can escape lives of hopelessness and uselessness. In Laguna Goducate has been helping people who have not finished their schooling to complete it through the Philippines Department of Education Alternative Learning System (ALS).

ALS is a parallel learning system in the Philippines that provides a practical option to the existing formal system of instruction. It includes both non-formal and formal sources of knowledge and skills. Through ALS, Filipinos have the chance to access complete basic education in a mode that fits their distinct situations and needs. Its programs are modular and flexible. Learning can take place anytime, anywhere, depending on the convenience and availability of the learner.

On Jan 20-22, the Goducate Training Center in Iloilo partnered with the Department of Education’s Bureau of Alternative Learning System (BALS) to run a three-day training on ALS. The training was attended by 69 participants composed of Goducate community development workers, the new batch of Goducate trainees, and some members of the San Miguel community whom Goducate has helped. The participants received a certificate of completion and are now officially recognized as ALS facilitators.

With our community development workers now certified as ALS facilitators, Goducate Training Center is hopeful that more poor rural communities in the Philippines will be reached and offered the gift of free and convenient access to education.

Newly qualified facilitators with their certificates

*Our guest writer is Joanna De Leon, a Goducate volunteer

2015-02-062015-02-09

Goducate targets 400 new barangays

Goducate has started 2015 with an ambitious project. It aims to extend its helping hand to 400 new barangays (villages, districts, or wards) in Panay (an island in the Western Visayas group and on which the Goducate Training Center is situated) and Leyte (an Eastern Visayas island that was particularly badly hit by Supertyphoon Haiyan in 2013 and where Goducate did some relief work). Such an aim might seem impossible, but only by dreaming big for the less privileged Filipinos are we able to improve their present status. This project is called CDWs [community development workers] for the Barangays.

CDWs for the Barangays (CFB) is a six-month long project that kicked off on Feb 1. Ten groups of Goducate CDWs have been deployed to the island of Leyte and to the following towns on Panay: San Miguel, Oton, Alimodian, Tigbauan, Leon, Concepcion, Car-Bal-Es (Carles, Balasan and Estancia), Lemery, and Capiz. The target barangays will receive free health check-ups and health education. This health-education drive will cover the following:

I. For adults:
a) Blood-pressure checks and a hypertension-information drive
b) Random blood-sugar checks and a diabetes-information drive
c) A moringa-awareness and moringa-powder-making seminar

II. For Children
a)Good hygiene practices such as toothbrushing and handwashing
b) Checks on nutritional status, using World Health Organization Child Growth Standards for children aged 6 and under, and Body Mass Index for older children

This big project requires much in the way of materials such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, for which we will be glad to have sponsors.

*Our guest writer is Joanna De Leon, a community development worker