Helping Asians Help Themselves
The Goducate Children’s Home in Cambodia expanded its staff strength recently with the arrival of three new Filipino staff members – teachers Sheila and Gene, and Will, an agriculturist.
The three arrived at the Home at the end of August. They had about a week to settle down before the start of the new academic year on 10th Sept. Sheila and Gene are trained in the US home based learning system which the children at the Home are enrolled in.
One of the booming industries in Sabah is the food industry. Restaurants serving various Asian foods and even western fast-food restaurants are being opened, so there is an unending demand for good and trusted cooks and other kitchen staff, waiters and waitresses, and cashiers. Goducate hopes to train our current and ex-students to meet this demand.
First we need a good trainer. Our search for one ended in July, when our previous part-time literacy teacher, Teacher H, who has also been a cook for many years in an Indian restaurant, came to ask me whether he could join us again. He stopped teaching over a year ago, when his wife took over his teaching duties. Although he is enjoying his work as a cook, he says that nothing can compare with the joy of helping others through teaching literacy at our centers. After our discussion he agreed to come back, not as a literacy teacher, but as a cookery trainer in our livelihood program.
Last month, Teacher H started his cookery class with 11 students at the Goducate livelihood-training section situated in Goducate’s main literacy center. His students consisted of some intermediate-grade pupils at our literacy centers, some of our young assistant teachers, and others from neighboring communities. An important feature about the cookery training is that trainees will learn not only culinary skills but also good workplace attitudes.
Having been a Goducate teacher in the past, Teacher H understands Goducate style of combining character training with skills training. He has also been successful in training two others to be cooks—his own children. Although Teacher H is considered by his boss to be vital to the restaurant, his two children, who are now also working at the same restaurant, are able to hold the fort when he is not around. They are also earning enough to financially support the family.
Having trained his own children to be cooks, he wants to do likewise for others who are willing to learn, so that they will be able to help themselves. As he told his trainees, if they perform well during the training, he can recommend them to his restaurant boss or to other restaurant owners.
Three members of staff from the Goducate Training Center in Iloilo, Philippines, were recently in North Sumatra for an exposure trip. Jan, Jet, and Mike were there to learn from Goducate Indonesia, which has partnered with some organizations involved in poverty alleviation. This year, Goducate Indonesia has been in the forefront of helping transform the lives of disadvantaged Indonesians from a state of helplessness into a purposeful one.
In one village, the three observed that most of the people draw income from backyard animal raising, from crop sales, and from being hired workers. The household per capita income is below $800 per year, and the impoverishment is evident from their semi-permanent shelters with palm-frond roofing. The literacy level is low with no-one from among the 120 families in the community having a college degree.
Three months ago, Goducate Indonesia and its local partner conducted a consultation with the people, and the consensus was for a livestock project in the village. At the time the three men from the Goducate Training Center were there, the animal shed was being constructed, so, under my supervision (since I been through farm mechanics, carpentry, and farm structures classes in my days as an agricultural student), they were able to help install the electrical connections, the plumbing, and the electric water pump, thus saving the locals from having to seek expert help from elsewhere. They then showed the locals how to ferment feeds using indigenous materials mixed with proportionate amounts of water and molasses.
One other highlight of their visit was the trip to Nias Island. This is the largest island in a chain that parallels the west coast of North Sumatra. It has a population of about 800,000 people, most of whom are of Malay ancestry. In 2005, the coastal areas were devastated by a tsunami and more than 2,000 casualties were reported. The island used to be famous worldwide as surfing destination but the recent spates of earthquakes have considerably slowed down tourism.
In Nias, the Goducate Training Center staff helped me with my lectures on emerging agriculture technologies and in doing the field surveys. They noted that the islanders are very reliant on income from coconuts and native fruit trees as well as from sea resources. The techniques of food production used there, whether it be from poultry, livestock, vegetables, freshwater fish, grains, or cereals, is low tech, and the emphasis is in meeting the staple needs rather than for commercial scale.
The feedback from the three Goducate Training Center staff is vital for the enrichment of the existing curriculum at the training center. For instance, they found it worthwhile to include acquisition of basic skills in carpentry, plumbing, electricity, and rapid rural appraisal. These shared ideas will impact a lot on improving instruction so that the students will end up as holistically trained community development workers with the right mind-set of helping needy Asians help themselves.