Several people have asked why we had planned to have nice dormitories and facilities at our Goducate Training Center in Iloilo, Philippines. They rightly wondered why we wanted to “spoil” our Goducate trainees – who were being trained to work in poor communities. Couldn’t they just sleep on the floor in the Multi-Purpose Hall?
It is likely that the first few batches of trainees will indeed sleep on the floor in the Multi-Purpose Hall, until funds are available to build additional facilities.
However, we are hoping eventually to build proper dormitories and recreational facilities so that the Center can be self-supporting. A core philosophy of Goducate is to help Asians help themselves. Therefore, one of the core skills that our trainees will learn at the Center is to learn how to be self-supporting. It is our hope that when they are sent to poor communities, they will creatively impart this core-vaue of self-support to their communities.
There are several ways that we hope will make the Center self-supporting. A major way is to produce their own food. Trainees will be taught scientific, small-scale food production that can be transferred to most Asian poor rural communities. A good part of the acreage of the camp and a large part of the initial funding is for soil preparation and irrigation. We have several top quality agriculturalists serving as Goducate volunteers at the Center who will help us to achieve this.
Another major way of raising funds is to rent out the Center to corporations for their training functions and to individuals seeking recreational facilities. There is a large potential market for a well run, recreational facility in Iloilo. Besides raising funds for the running of the camp, trainees will also be able to learn many useful skills, eg. management, leadership, planning, creativity. For the Center to be a recreational center, it will need, as funds are available, to have nice facilities, eg. decent accommodation, interesting recreational facilities.
Since funds are limited, we will focus on the agricultural aspect first. After all, the trainees need to eat and agricultural skills are needed in most of the communities that we serve. Scientific, sustainable, small-scale agriculture will be the best way to help Asians help themselves.