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Channel News Asia film Laguna musicians again

About a year ago Channel News Asia featured Goducate’s music students for the program Once Upon a Village, which was aired earlier this year. For that program, Channel News Asia brought along Singaporean violinist Min Lee and director of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music orchestra Wang Ya Hui to assess the students, and to suggest what could be done to help improve the music project. The suggestion was to send 5 of the violinists to Singapore for a short spell of intensive training to prepare them for some music exams. The idea was that there would be a follow-up program to see how the project would have improved over the year.

Filming Elaine Mallari training violinists
Wang Ya Hui demonstrating how to walk on stage

In November, the five violinists spent 10 days in Singapore training at the Wolfgang Music Studio, during which time Channel News Asia filmed them for the follow-up program. Since Channel News Asia’s first visit, they violinists have also been receiving regular lessons from Elaine Mallari of the Manila Symphony Orchestra.

This week, Channel News Asia was back in Laguna with Wang Ya Hui to assess the musicians’ progress. During this visit Wang Ya Hui helped them and conductor Bernard prepare for a concert to raise funds to help our students continue their studies in college or high school. There is more to conducting and playing instruments in preparation for a concert. One of the things the students learnt this time was how to walk on stage!

The follow-up program is expected to be aired in Jan or Feb 2012.

Students learning how to walk on stage
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Pedro – life transformed by Goducate

Pedro on his new motor-bike

Pedro, aged 32 and married with two young children, was a jobless and aimless fellow who first appeared at the Goducate Training Center (GTC) with his armed gang, hoping to extort some ‘protection money’ during the early stages of construction. Careful negotiations and counselling sessions with us subsequently led him out of the gang, and he joined the GTC construction team.

We also visited his family, showing them kindness and slowly helped them out of poverty. He owned no land or property, but we offered him opportunities at the GTC to learn farming. We shared our farming expertise with him and soon gave him charge of the hundreds of mango trees at the GTC.

Goducate’s philosophy of helping the poor to help themselves is seen in Pedro’s story – before long, he was able to repair his shack of a house, and subsequently bought a motor-bike, using it to visit other villagers in the area to teach them the farming and crop-growing skills he had picked up from the GTC.

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Franklin – life transformed by Goducate

Franklin with his ampalaya harvest

When Franklin first came to Goducate, he was given the job of helping with the clearing of the jungle-like land which the Goducate Training Center (GTC) now stands on. After that, he continued to help us till the ground and grow useful plants and vegetables.

Now one of our hardworking, trusted workers, Franklin is married with one child. Although he owned a small piece of land not far away from the GTC, he could not afford seeds or fertilizer for planting. He and his family used to live very simply on one or two meals (rice and vegs only) a day. His desire to grow something on his land was soon realised when Goducate helped him with the initial investment of a few seeds.

After a few months, he has a thriving crop of ampalaya (bitter gourds) as well as hot peppers, pumpkins and rice on his own land. His family now has the means to add fish and meat regularly to their diet. At the GTC, he works tirelessly in the farms, regularly harvesting heaps of ampalaya, chilli and other vegetables for us.