Goducate Training Center (GTC) in Iloilo, The Philippines, has just begun its eight month full-time training of its community development workers (CDWs). A good part of their training is in agriculture, because many of them will be working with poor rural or semi-urban communities where malnutrition is a endemic problem.
A key principle of GTC training is that it is practical and hands-on, so that our graduates can really be useful to the communities that they work with. And a key philosophy of Goducate is that we teach “Asians to help themselves.”
Therefore, our trainees will each be given a plot of land to grow food. The food that the trainees grow will, we hope, provide 90% of their food needs. The key performance index (KPI) for our agriculture consultant and trainees is that they collectively produce 90% of their total food consumption at the end of the year. In this year, our trainees will be first learning to “help themselves” before they go out to teach communities to “help themselves.”
On my recent trip to GTC, I will pleased to see the place turning into a large productive farm. The trees that we had planted two years ago are now beginning to bear fruit. The vegetable fields are filled with lush vegetables. The tilapia fish are multiplying.
GTC must be able to support its own faculty, staff and trainees with food, otherwise how can we tell poor farmers that they should support their own families?!
Helping Asians to help themselves, must first begin in GTC!