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Making decorative items is a Goducate livelihood program in Laguna

Goducate’s aim is to help the needy help themselves, not only by helping them through their schooling but also by offering them livelihood projects. Making decorative items out of rejects from paper factories is a Goducate livelihood program that has been started in Laguna.

A Goducate volunteer had learnt how to make these products from a friend who had attended a seminar on the technique. Initially this lady worked for her friend, but later decided to work with Goducate’s head of livelihood projects in Laguna to offer it as a livelihood project to parents of the children who attend Goducate Literacy Centers. Since the start of the program at one learning center in early October, the program has been extended to three other centers, with some 35 women taking part.

There are five basic designs in plain white that can be bought as they are. The women also produce decorated versions of these basic designs.

The women have been marketing their goods by personal visits to stores, and also online. A gift store in San Pablo City (a place where people go to buy such decorative items and souvenirs) has placed an order for 1000 items. Many have been bought as “giveaways” for weddings, and orders have been placed for several hundred pieces to be given away at two other weddings.

Scrap paper, the basic material
Part of the molding process
Samples of product
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Goducate helpers offer combined academic and music lessons

Goducate aims to help the needy help themselves. One group of people in Laguna who have benefited from Goducate projects, and who have in turn been helping others as volunteers teaching academic subjects or music to others in the villages, have banded together to offer their services in the town for 2000 pesos a month per student. For this fee, a student will receive, each week, an hour of one-to-one tuition in academic subjects 4 times a week, and an hour of music lessons every Saturday. The music lesson will be given in small groups of 3.

The teachers will be Goducate helpers who are college or university graduates, and the 15 Goducate scholars. These Goducate scholars are those students who are continuing their college or university education on scholarships offered by the institutions on the strength of their musical ability.

We hope that this endeavor will serve as an example to other Goducate beneficiaries of how they can use their skills to help themselves and their families.

One-on-one tutorial in academic subject
Group music lesson
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Goducate Training Center trainees help neighboring communities

Goducate Training Center is situated among poor rural communities in the municipality of San Miguel, Iloilo.

When we first started construction of the Goducate Training center two years ago, the area had been hit by a long drought and most of the farm land surrounding the center was barren and uncultivated. As we developed the 11 hectares of land, we discovered that there were 5 springs in our land. So one of the first structures that we constructed on the land was an impounding pond to provide water for our crops and for our neighbors’ fields.

Since the construction of the impounding lake, we have been providing water for all our own rice-fields and vegetable gardens, and supplying water to our neighbors’ rice-fields. The land in and around Goducate Training Center is now a beautiful green “oasis” even in the dry season.

Goducate trainees on their way to help our neighbors help themselves
Goducate turns a desert into an oasis

Goducate Training Center also provides employment for the communities around us. Most of our construction workers and support staff are from the neighboring communities. More important than the employment opportunities provided, is the training that is provided as they work at the center. Promising workers are identified for further training and employment in Goducate Training Center.

Goducate Training Center trainees also spend about half of their training to be community development workers in practical work, most of which is done in the neighboring communities. Daily our trainees go out to these communities to teach literacy, lifeskills, public health, agriculture, etc.

Before our community development workers graduate in December and are sent away to other poor communities, they must first help our neighbors to help themselves.

For booking inquiries please contact our booking officerat 09225506199