Goducate … Go And Educate! – Page 139 – Helping Asians Help Themselves

2012-07-172012-07-18

Goducate starts more literacy centers in Laguna

So far this year Goducate has started 3 new literacy centers in Laguna, The Philippines, giving us a total of 5, which together have 72 students. Most of the students are pre-school children, though there are some older ones, who for various reasons are unable to attend school.

At two of the new centers the students were so keen to start that lessons have been held in very temporary structures. At Ulik lessons have been conducted under a tent, which also serves as a shelter for our music students in the area. At Burol, lessons have been held in the open, at first with students sitting on banana leaves, then as more joined the class, they sat on tarpaulin sheets.

Ulik3 — Literacy class conducted under a tent at Ulik

BurolBananaLeaf — Students sitting on banana leaves

BurolSittingOnTarpaulin — Students attend class sitting on tarpaulin sheets

Last month we were privileged to be visited by Goducate’s literacy trainer who is based in Iloilo, who came to motivate and upgrade our teachers. Her training sessions were attended by Goducate staff and volunteers as well as by some of the mothers of the students.

We were also very pleased last month to received from the Department of Education in Bay, Laguna, a certificate of appreciation for the Goducate literacy program. It signifies recognition that our program is a valuable support for the Department’s program.

2012-07-13

Goducate setting up Global Life Hub to help needy Indians

India is one of today’s fast emerging economies. Hyderabad is one of
the fastest growing cities in India—with many multinational corporations, especially high-tech ones situated in the ultra-modern “cities” in its suburbs.

Full building pic take from road highway t — Exterior of Global Life Hub (occupying top floor of the building as marked out in red)

It is the dream of many young Indians to work in one of these MNCs.
So thousands of bright young Indians from all over India study hard to
attain the necessary qualifications for such jobs.There are many good universities that offer almost all the relevant courses for employment in MNCs. However, there seems to be one missing “course” to help many “poorer” Indians fit into MNCs—namely, the ability to speak English fluently in an international environment.

Most Indians aspire to send their children to English-medium schools.
Such schools are usually privately run and significantly more expensive than the government-run schools. Many children of upper-class families not only attend such schools but also grow up in English-speaking homes. They have much more advantage in securing jobs in MNCs because they are fluent in English, more comfortable among foreigners, and more familiar with international culture.

However, many bright Indians with professional qualifications come from less advantaged backgrounds and many more come from villages where English is merely an examination subject, foreigners are rarely seen, and international culture is totally strange to them. In the fast internationalizing scene of India, especially in cities such as Hyderabad, these Indians are severely handicapped in securing employment.

Goducate hopes to help these worthy but “needy” Indians by helping
them to speak English fluently and familiarizing them with international culture. Goducate will be setting up a Global Life Hub in Hyderabad to provide them with the environment where they can speak English, meet foreigners, and be “immersed” in international culture so that they will be more confident at job interviews and more successful in their
jobs.

GLH will be an “international zone” where only English is spoken, thereby “forcing” members to speak in English. Foreign GLH volunteers will help members get used to speaking to foreigners and understand their accents and culture. GLH activities will nurture confidence and communication skills.

GLH Hyderabad will soon open its doors to help Indians to help themselves in this fast new world.

2012-07-102012-07-13

Using technology for Goducate health program in Sabah

Goducate’s health program in Sabah is implemented by our local health educator. Since most of the community served by Goducate there do not have access to state health services, our health educator is often consulted about health problems. We have been exploring how to support her through a telehealth system that enables her to consult our registered nurse based in Singapore.

We initially tried live teleconsultation, but because of unreliable 3G connectivity in the field, it was not possible; however asynchronous teleconsultation was.

When our health educator is approached by a villager about a health problem, she will take measurements of some basic vital signs as well as record the villager’s medical concerns on a form that she will submit online to our nurse in Singapore. The clinical advice is then given in a form of skype chat/call to the relevant patient.

This online consultation does not cater for emergency situations, but rather for cases with chronic conditions. In the first two weeks of the trial, advice was given to 12 patients through this method.

Another area in which we are trying to use free technological applications to help our health educator is in growth monitoring. Traditionally, health workers use the Age-BMI growth chart to plot measurements and detect a child who is malnourished or severely underweight.

Since this process is manual and can be very time consuming, and considering the vast number of students whose growth we are monitoring, a free application tool is used instead to obtain z scores (a measure of the degree of deviation from the mean) more quickly and accurately.

With this free application, known as Anthro Plus, our health educator needs only to input the student’s age, height and weight, and the software automatically calculates the z-score of the student.

So far, these two technology tools have proven to be reliable and effective to keep the team in Singapore in touch with the team in Sabah.