Goducate … Go And Educate! – Page 111 – Helping Asians Help Themselves

2013-05-072013-05-07

New roles for Tim and Nathan at Goducate Children’s Home in Cambodia

Last year Timothy and Nathan, two boys from the Goducate Children’s Home in Cambodia, spent 8 months at the Goducate Training Centre in Iloilo, Philippines, training to be community development workers. They returned at the end of the year, and are now helping as staff.

Among other things, they were taught agriculture and how to be effective in reaching out to the poor communities. Timothy is now engaged in the agricultural projects around the Home, such as aquaponics (growing crop and fish together in a re-circulating system) and vermiculture (worm farming).

Nathan is being trained in skills such as welding and electrical work and his duties are mainly connected with the boys’ workshop in the Home, and both he and Timothy are currently working on constructing the foundation of a girls’ workshop.

Both the boys also go into the community every Thursday to teach children English through story-telling and simple songs. There are also plans for further literacy work in the community later this year.

Timothy and Nathan have grown in many ways through their training at the Goducate Training Center. The two boys are setting an example for the other children at the Home and giving them hope that they too have a future to look forward to.

Timothy teaching children in the community

Timothy and Nathan doing construction work

2013-05-032013-05-04

First batch of Goducate trainees ready for work in Indonesia

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.

2013-04-302013-05-04

Children in Laguna show their skill at playing the recorder

On April 26 the Goducate music department in Laguna Province, the Philippines, held a recorder concert at the Goducate Music Learning Center. The performers were some 50 children aged about 6-12 from 10 villages around the town of Bay who are learning to play the recorder. 14 Goducate volunteers go out to the various villages to teach a total of 73 children. The concert was a means of identifying those children who might be skilled enough to learn some other musical instrument.

The three days preceding the concert were spent on intensive rehearsals, which the children really enjoyed.

The Goducate music program in Laguna has been a means of keeping children off the streets, helping them to earn school and university scholarships through their musical ability, giving those in the orchestra a chance to earn pocket money through public performances at various events, and along the way teaching all the children qualities such as discipline, diligence, patience, and teamwork. The volunteer teachers are those who have benefited from the program, and who are not helping others to help themselves.

Some of the students with their teachers