On March 11-13, some 50 people, made up of the Goducate team in Indonesia, together with their working partners and members of the headquarters team in Singapore, gathered in Batam for a “summit”. With the theme of the summit being “United to Serve”, the community development workers were given reminders (a) of the purpose of their being in Indonesia, namely, to serve the Indonesians, (b) of how they had been trained at the Goducate Training Center in Iloilo to be servants, and (c) of how to remain united.
They were also reminded of Goducate’s “5 Ps”—-purpose, people, program, place, and provision. When Goducate starts on a project, it works through the 5 Ps in that order. It starts with an aim to be achieved, recruits the appropriate people for the project, plans the program, decides where best to start the project, and then seeks for resources. It does not accumulate resources first and then look around for ways of using those resources.
The Goducate workers in Indonesia are scattered in Indonesia—in Pekanbaru, Batam, Medan, and Bandung—mainly teaching English to adults and children or helping villagers in agricultural projects. The summit was a chance for the various teams to update each other on what they are doing, and for those working on specific projects to brainstorm on how they can take their projects further. For instance, the Sing Your English team discussed how videos can be used to facilitate teaching by this method. As a result a drama team was formed to take this idea further.
