Early this month the Goducate Orchestra was hired to play at a wedding. 15 of the 25 members of the orchestra were given the privilege to play.
The wedding couple and guests were impressed, and our players enjoyed themselves.
What’s promising is that the photographer and the caterer offered to recommend us to their prospective clients. But what really put the smiles on the players’ faces was the fee they received—a full 200 pesos (USD 4.70) each, for their first pay packet!
As we had hoped, the Goducate music program is both an educational and a livelihood program.
Orchestra with the wedding coupleOrchestra playing at the weddingOpening their pay packets
Goducate’s music program in Laguna continues to expand, and more and more youth are being motivated to dream and hope through music. Five youth from this program will arrive in Singapore on July 15 on “scholarships” offered through Singaporean violinist Min Lee, who visited Laguna with her team for the filming of Goducate’s music
program for Channel News Asia’s “Once Upon a Village” series on projects being carried out in villages in Asia.
Presently, our music program is reaching 11 villages in Laguna. One of the most successful villages is Talahiban. Recently, we bought a piece of land there to build a Goducate center and “music studio.” The immediate reason why we need a “studio” is because the noise (not music!) from youngsters learning to play musical instruments can be quite unbearable to the neighbors! Another reason is that we hope that in the not-too-distant future our musicians will be good enough for more intensive training in a studio, which could double up as a place where they can give performances.
We look forward to the day when the children of Talahiban will dream BIG dreams – not only in music but also in other worthy professions and pursuits.
Surveying land for Goducate center and music studioTalahiban children learning in makeshift classroomTalahiban children learning in makeshift classroom
The Goducate model farm in Laguna is being expanded by another 5000 sq meters. The existing farm has been fully planted with vegetables and there has been a need to expand the farm for some time.
The purpose of this farm is to help our workers to learn how to grow vegetables in small sustainable plots, so that they can then teach needy people to grow vegetables in their own backyard (or frontyard) plots in our Veg@table projects. The food produced on this farm also provides food for the full-time Goducate trainees who are being trained there and who live there.
The Veg@table projects in various poor communities have been slow to take off because of lack of water in these communities in the previous few month. Another limiting factor has been the lack of workers who are trained in this form of agriculture. This expansion will help solve this problem.
