The first batch of Goducate community development workers to be trained at the Goducate Language Center in Batam has completed 6 months’ training in Bahasa Indonesia, the Indonesian language. To help the 8 trainees pick up conversational rather than formal Indonesian, part of their language training took the form of community work at an orphanage and in a poor village. The completion of their language training was marked by a “culmination” program at which the trainees were given a pep talk on what is expected of them when they go out to serve in the community, at which they demonstrated what they had learnt of Indonesian language and culture, and at which they received their certificates of completion of training. Two others, who did only part of the training, received certificates of attendance.
The community development workers will soon be on their way to their postings in different parts of
Indonesia. In fact, 2 have already started work. They have been in Medan for the past 3 weeks, teaching English.
The Goducate Language Center is open to students other than Goducate trainees. Since Goducate’s tag line is “helping the needy help themselves”, we believe that we ought to be helping ourselves be self-reliant. Hence the language center takes in paying students who want to learn either English or Bahasa Indonesia.
