Goducate … Go And Educate! – Page 107 – Helping Asians Help Themselves

2013-06-18

Goducate offers needy Myanmar children a home

Ten needy children in Myanmar are being cared for in a home supported by Goducate. Two have been orphaned. The other eight are either from single-parent families or have no homes since both parents have remarried. All are poor. Their ages range from 5 to 14.

The children are settling down well into the home’s family environment. They are getting used to their “new parents and siblings”, and the older ones have started to attend public schools.

It is our wish that the children will learn to care for one another and be familiar with the duties assigned to them. The children will have the love and togetherness that eluded them with their natural parents. This in turn will give them the desire and confidence to care for others and eventually become useful and responsible young adults. Home for now is an apartment about an hour’s drive east of Yangon.

Choosing clothes given by Goducate supporters

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Goducate brings education to Myanmar village

Goducate has been teaching in a village about one and a half hour’s drive north of Yangon, Myanmar, where the need for such help is great because the children there are unable to go to school. Their parents wake up before sunrise, to work carrying rocks from boats to shore. Finishing at about 5pm, they stagger home to cook and have dinner before soon going to bed to wake early again for the next day’s work. The parents cannot afford the time and money to send their children to school. The children play during the day, casually looked after by a few old grandparents and mothers who are too exhausted to work that day. They eat food prepared early by their mothers or perhaps even leftovers from the previous evening’s dinner.

The children look forward to anything that breaks their daily routine. Thus a very ready audience of about 50 children and their mothers gather within 20 minutes around Goducate’s two workers from Yangon whenever they visit, often unannounced. For our workers, it is a tiring 7 hours round trip by public transport from their home for each visit. But, it is a worthwhile endeavor, for I could see when I was there a couple of weeks ago, how keen the children were to learn. It is not only the children but also the adults who look forward to these simple short visits. The classes are held in the front yard of a kind farmer, who also allows the use of his small bamboo house when weather is bad.

Our two workers intend to provide more regular teaching sessions for the children in the village.

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Children at Goducate Children’s Home tend their own vegetable plots

Agriculture is one of the livelihood projects at the Goducate Children’s Home in Cambodia. It is a livelihood skill that could be useful for the children when they leave the Home, either as a means of livelihood for themselves, or as a skill that they might be able to impart to others in their community. Agricultural training is thus, like schoolwork and other duties in the Home, part of the children’s daily activities.

Twelve of the older children have been grouped into twos or threes, with each group being assigned a parcel of land on which they grow about four crops. They are taught how to prepare their own plots, and they are also provided a greenhouse in which to grow their seedlings. The children sell their crops to the Home at a little lower than the market price, and from their earnings they return the capital cost of their crops.

About two months ago, they enjoyed the fruit of their labor, when they had their first harvest of organic tomatoes. Most of the tomatoes were sold to the Home, but one lot was sold to a friend of the Home.

Aside from tending their own plots, the children are help with planting in different areas of the Home. They have been planting a leguminous tree, Madre de Cacao, which has nitrogen-fixing properties and thus will help to fertilize the ground. They have also been planting Moringa for consumption in the Home, because this plant provides many nutrients.

Right now, the children are preparing their plots for a second batch of seedlings.