Category: Philippines

Goducate Training Center (GTC) in Iloilo, Philippines, is still being developed.

The basic facilities have been completed since April this year. The Multi-Purpose Hall with its gymnasium, offices, training rooms, dining facilities, and kitchen are now fully utilized for the training of our GTC trainees and for other groups (especially weekend youth groups).

The agricultural facilities of “greenhouse”, vermiculture beds, aquaculture pond and agricultural fields now serve as the laboratory for our GTC trainees — who have to undergo a compulsory basic agricultural course, so that they can help needy Asian rural communities.

Some recreational facilities (eg. dipping-pool, zip-line, restaurant, facilities for
horse-rides, etc) were also completed in April 2011. These recreational facilities are not only used by the youth campers but are also meant to help GTC earn revenue from organizations who will rent GTC for their corporate functions.

After the basic facilities were completed in April, GTC has been slowly adding facilities as funds are available. The unusually heavy rains this year have caused some erosion to the slopes of GTC and to the impounding lake, and hampered our construction works.

So far, the restaurant’s kitchen extension and the children’s playground have been successfully completed. The faculty housing and the ladies’ dormitories are still under construction. Additional drainage works are being added to prevent soil erosion. And as soon as the rainy season ends, the main camp roads will be “concretized”.

We hope to complete all these projects before the end of the year so that GTC can be ready for its 2012 intake of 100+ trainees, who will be trained to help needy Asians help themselves.

Goducate Training Center (GTC) in Iloilo, Philippines, is now busy holding youth camps regularly. During the Philippine summer months, youth camps/gatherings are held almost weekly. Many of the youth are transported in from poorer communities to be trained in discipline, team-work, confidence, leadership skills, life-skillls, etc.

These activities not only train these youth in many useful life-skills but also provide practical training for our GTC trainees on how to run youth activities. Presently, a pilot batch of over 20 trainees is undergoing their training in GTC. We hope that several of these initial trainees will stay on to serve as trainers next year – when we plan to
increase our intake of trainees to over 100. We also hope that several of them will be sent overseas (especially to Indonesia) to work with the large number of needy youth in other Asian countries.

This year the rainfall has been unusually heavy at GTC and has somewhat hampered our activities and other training activities (especially our agricultural training). However, learning to hold youth activities in the rain is a useful skill for our trainees as
they learn to help needy Asian youth help themselves – even under difficult conditions.