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Goducate Expands Student Activity Center in China

Since 2009, Lifepegs, Goducate’s international lifeskill-based activity center for young adults in a city in Northeast China, has:

– maintained relationship with current 1700 active members;
– hosted total of 7 four-week English Summer camps;
– organized more than 600 activities reaching out to more than 8000 young adults;
– started on-campus-societies in 6 universities.

The center is geared towards providing members with essential life skills education, unique opportunities for healthy relationships, and new and exciting recreation.

Students who could be served by new Goducate's new activity centers in the south
One of universities in the catchment area for Goducate's new activity centers.

Every activity from rock wall climbing to learning about financial management to traveling to a distant city is meant to teach a life skill as well as provide some new and exciting experiences whilst they get to know each other and find a lasting and enthusiastic group of friends.

Members are also invited to take part in a leadership training program which evaluates the development of their leadership skills and presents them with opportunities to lead activities. Some of these trained leaders believed in the philosophy and dreamt about setting up more Student Activity Centres in other parts of China. And, their dream has indeed come true!

Right now, as you are reading this article, two core teams of 6 native workers trained by Goducate are working hard to set up two Student Activity Centres in southern China. These new centres aim to help more than 60,000-70,000 students from 8 universities in one city, and in another, 50000+ students from 3 major universities.

Goducate has achieved its mission of helping these young adults in China to help themselves as they seize the opportunities to acquire life skills and an education that goes far beyond their university or their individual abilities.

Moreover, they are now transferring what they have learnt and passed on to their fellow folks a set of adventures that they can truly hang their lives on!

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De-worming for Goducate Center’s students.

One of Goducate’s learning centers in Sabah commemorated its first anniversary in an unusual way. The 60-plus students attending the two classes at this center underwent a de-worming session.

The teachers at our learning centers have observed that most of their children are malnourished, lethargic, and have a short attention span. These symptoms are very likely due to parasitic worm infestations and lack of a well-balanced diet.

The event started with a health talk for both the children and their parents on parasitic worm diseases commonly seen in Southeast Asia. One of the contributing factors to parasitic worm infestation is that many of these kampong (village) kids grow up playing barefooted in the muddy soil below their houses, which are built on stilts above the mangrove swamps along the river banks or sea shores. Because of poor sanitation practice as well as poor hygienic practices, the soil becomes an excellent breeding ground for parasitic worms. As I spoke, I could see the parents nodding their heads in agreement with the various signs and symptoms I showed. Some of the parents could also share their own experiences of having parasites when they were young. I was happy to hear of their personal experiences because it will make it much easier for them to recognize and detect early parasitic worm infestation in their children. The kids expressed their dread of the outcome of parasitic infestations and couldn’t wait to learn how to avoid acquiring worms.

It was a good opportunity to reinforce the importance of observing personal hygiene, in particular through proper handwashing. During the handwashing demonstration, I was pleased to see so many of the parents actively going through the motions of the basic 7 steps of handwashing.

The session ended with distribution of deworming medication to all the students who were present that day. Goducate thanks the generous sponsors for the medical supplies and hopes to expand this de-worming program to the rest of our learning centers in Sabah the near future.

kids barefoot in the mud
Parents following good handwashing technique
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Goducate staff will cross any bridge to train teachers

Goducate now has 17 learning centers in north east Sabah, manned by 34 teachers and 11 assistant teachers. Last month we were invited to two areas some distance away to train the people there to conduct our literacy programs. At the village 200 km away, we went to follow up on training that we did last year. At the village 400 km was new to us. I brought with me two of our teachers and an assistant teacher.

Safest way to cross a shaky jambatan
Goducate team with local partner (in the background)

Many of our villages are built on swampy land or over the water, so we are very used to shaky “jambatans” (bridges). But nothing prepared us for the shakiness and flimsiness of the jambatans we had to cross at the village 400 km away. These jambatans consisted of nothing more than pairs of thin planks held together by a few rusty nails. Worse, there were no bars, or poles, or ropes to hang on to for support. Some of us took off our footwear; another felt that the only way to maintain balance was to go on all fours. But all knew how important it was to get across the bridge, for waiting at the other end were people hungry for our help.

One of the locals participating in the training session; he was one of the two later appointed to be teachers

15 people attended our training session that day. From among them we selected one supervisor, two teachers, and two assistant teachers. We hope they will be able to use our program efficiently. For ourselves we hope to cross this bridge again, in follow-up training.