Goducate … Go And Educate! – Page 119 – Helping Asians Help Themselves

2013-02-122013-02-13

Progress with Goducate community farming in Tranca, Laguna

Two community farming projects were started in the village of Tranca about 4 months ago. One was to teach agricultural methods in an elementary school, and the other was the setting up of a communal farm in the Blu-Paong area.

The students at the Tranca Elementary School were taught vermicomposting (how to use earthworms to make compost) as well as how to plant vegetables. The Schools Division Superintendent was glad to see the profusion of vegetables at the school, which was named Best Implementer of Vegetable Gardening in the whole municipality of Bay, Laguna. The second round of planting has already been completed. The focus was on hydroponics because that that was the most successful project.

To learn more about agriculture the principal and the agriculture teacher of Tranca Elementary School visited the Goducate Model Farm last week. They hope to bring the students there some time.

At Blu-paong, a communal farm was set up in October, 2012, in the backyard of a lady whose child was attending a Goducate literacy center. The farm is worked by some of the women in the area. They are still trying to work out what grows best in the kind of soil they have there. Their trial with tomatoes and papayas were not a great success. The yield was sufficient only for personal consumption. The “pechay” grew well, as did the lettuce. There was sufficient lettuce for use in the feeding program at the Goducate literacy center in Lalao as well as for sale in the neighborhood. This season the women will be assessing whether bittergourds grow well in their soil.

Vegetables grown at Tranca elementary school

Teachers from Tranca school (in red) learning about planting vegetables from Goducate staff worker

Women at Blu-paong communal farm tending to lettuce

2013-02-082013-02-08

Goducate trainees encouraged to dare to dream

Last week, Dr Low Lee Yong launched his book “I Dare to Dream”. About 200 people attended the launch held at MHC Asia’s premises in Singapore.

Dr Low, who is the founder of MHC Asia, Singapore’s largest third-party medical administrator, which links over 1000 clinics in Singapore, has been a staunch supporter of Goducate from its beginning. MHC Asia is Goducate’s largest corporate sponsor, giving up to 10% of its profits to Goducate. It also provides us with space in its office for use as Goducate’s headquarters, as well as with staffing help and services that we need to run our office. These provisions enable Goducate to save money on office rental and administrative costs, which can instead be used to fund our projects.

In the book, Dr Low describes his life growing up in a poor village and struggling against all odds to achieve his dreams. This story resonates with Goducate’s goal of helping needy Asians help themselves—by first helping them to dare to dream.

Dr Low dedicated this book to Goducate with these words: “This book is dedicated to the lives that have been touched by Goducate and the lives it will continue to touch”. He presented me a personally signed copy with these words “Dear Paul, Thanks for bringing Goducate into MHC and for bringing new meaning into MHC business”.

I brought a pile of personally signed copies of the book to Goducate Training Center in Iloilo, Philippines, to give to our new batch of trainees, and I encouraged them to read the book and to learn to dream. Daring to dream is an important part of our training because our graduates will go on to help needy Asians—many of whom fear to dream of ever breaking out of their hopeless lives!

2013-02-02 Dare to Dream Launch (10) — Dr Low’s book, “I Dare to Dream”

2013-02-02 Dare to Dream Launch (517) — Dr Low speaking at the book launch

2013-02-052013-02-05

English classes for communities around Goducate Children’s Home are popular

With the goal of helping needy Asians help themselves, the children and staff of the Goducate Children’s Home joined hands and minds in offering informal English language classes to three communities near the Home. This project was started 3-4 months ago, and the classes were to be held every Thursday and Saturday. However, initially the schedule at the Home was such that the Saturday classes could not be held very regularly. Now, with some adjustment of the time-table at the Home, we have been able to jumpstart the community program again.

The community classes are held in somebody’s house or in the open. The premises are not ideal, but they are very accessible to the children who want to attend the classes. One center is just in front of a quarry but the kids obviously do not mind sitting under the sun and using the ground as their drawing board. We hope to find more suitable premises that we can rent.

English is an important tool for getting on in the modern world, but it is not part of the local school curriculum, hence this opportunity to learn English for free is very attractive. In two of the communities the average attendance is 40-50 children.