Goducate … Go And Educate! – Page 185 – Helping Asians Help Themselves

2011-04-272011-04-21

Goducate Sabah at Transforming Our City Together Exhibition 2011

Goducate Sabah was invited to put up a photo exhibit in the Transforming Our City Together Exhibition 2011 in Penang, Malaysia. The conference was a gathering of organizations, businessmen, leaders, and volunteers who are calling for transformation in society.

One of the main speakers, Dr Kim Tan of Transformational Business Network spoke on corporate social responsibility and how good business practices positively affect transformation in the community. Goducate volunteers who attended the conference joined the workshop on education. The facilitator, educationist John Cruz, emphasized that transformation, be it in business, politics, culture, entertainment, etc, are all connected with education. When he visited the Goducate booth he expressed that this what was he was talking about and was quite impressed by how Goducate started learning centers that are run by mothers and by former students turned volunteer teachers.

Of the 40 exhibitors, Goducate Sabah, another learning center run by John Cruz, and a soon-to-be-started center by another group were the only three that are into literacy work. The exhibition was open to the public, and what Goducate is doing to help transform poor communities of women and children into productive learners and responsible members of their communities attracted much interest and appreciation.

2011-04-252011-04-21

Goducate Training Center sets example by helping itself

Goducate believes in helping needy Asians help themselves. Therefore, it believes in starting projects that are eventually self-sustaining. The exception to this is when Goducate helps out in emergency situations (eg, earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, floods).

Therefore, Goducate Training Center, where future Goducate workers are trained, must set the example of being self-sustaining. This will be a big challenge because it costs a lot of money to maintain an 11 hectare site, with multiple facilities on it. Furthermore, there is the need to feed, house, and train many trainees (hopefully 100 full-time trainees by 2012). We also need to feed about 100 teenagers from poor surrounding villages each weekend who come to the training center for weekend training in lifeskills such as discipline, teamwork, leadership, cultivating good habits, etc. Then there is the need to pay our faculty of agricultural lecturers and trainers, and teachers in English, literacy, computer skills, foreign language, and cross-cultural knowledge.

One way to help is to produce as much of our own food as possible. We have managed to grow high-yield rice that provides all our present rice needs. Our own vegetable gardens and fruit trees can produce most of our vegetable and fruit needs, with some extra for sale. Our impounding pond has an estimated 15,000 tilapia fish—which can provide most of our needs for animal protein.

However, we still need to raise funds to pay for the other expenses mentioned in para 2. We believe that we can raise this by renting out our facilities to corporations, institutions, schools, and even individuals for their special events. For example, a corporation may rent our multipurpose hall and facilities for their training or bonding event, or a university may rent our huts, dipping pools, and activity fields for a special event,

It is much more convenient to rely on donations to maintain the training center, but if we can’t help ourselves, we will not be able to train our workers to help others to help themselves.

2011-04-222011-04-21

Goducate invited to help teachers in Medan

Recently I was invited to speak to teachers in Medan. Medan is the largest town in Sumatra, an island in Indonesia.

These teachers were from 3 private schools that cater to students with “special” needs. As these schools are private, non-profit schools, their teachers do not get the benefit of regular upgrading provided by the Indonesian Ministry of Education.

There are many such schools in Indonesia that provide a much needed service to students who are unable to enroll in government schools.

Goducate has already helped many such schools in different parts of Indonesia, and it is now looking into how it can help them to help themselves by sharing resources and helping each other.