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The helpless become helpers

At our Project Leaders Training last week were two young men who were once hopeless and helpless but were now attending the training as leaders! They had been helped but were now helping others!

Both of them had never left their country before. They were proud owners of brand new passports – one from the Philippines and the other from Indonesia.

Roberto (aka Jet) Paltuob has just graduated from college (3rd from left in front row). Even when he was in his final year at college, he was volunteering with us as a camp organizer and camp counsellor with troubled teens in his native province of Iloilo, Philippines.

He is an amazingly hard worker and effective counsellor. It is no wonder that he can counsel troubled teens because he was once a troubled teen. For twelve years he was a pain to his mum, his family and his community. Jet was a hopeless drug addict!

However, some dear Christian friends did not give up on him and lovingly led him out of drugs and back to his mum, his family, his studies and a life of joy and usefulness. Jet is now a part of Camp Goducate – a large campsite that is dedicated to helping thousands of other like him to a life of joy and usefulness.

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Goducate Project Leaders Training – Finally we meet and dream together!

Last week, Goducate project leaders from 6 Asian countries gathered in Singapore for the first Goducate Project Leaders Training. Most of these are men and women who lead teams of Goducate volunteers in the countries where they serve.

For some it was the first time to hold a passport and leave their country. These were dear men who had been so busy serving in their Goducate projects and have never had the opportunity to leave their country. For many it was their first time to get to meet other Goducate project leaders and Headquarters Coordinating staff.

But for all it was the first time that we could spend time learning from each other and be challenged by others to dream BIG! For most project leaders, it was often a struggle just to get enough funds to support themselves and their projects. Survival rather than expansion was the priority.

But we were reminded constantly throughout the training that we have to dream BIG because Asia has a big population and the majority are poor in need of help to help themselves. The project leaders who had dreamt big and expanded their ministries shared their stories and encouraged the others.

Many Goducate supporters and volunteers joined the project leaders for the training sessions.

Goducate is a non-profit organization that needs many more volunteers to help!
Please volunteer!

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10 tips on writing a blog by Dr Leslie Tay from IeatIshootIpost food blog

Blogs are like little news websites that have sprouted in the internet world very rapidly. It is really very easy to start a blog using free tools like blogspot and wordpress. Volunteers working in Asia to help poorer Asians face many challenges and difficulties. They may have interesting and exciting encounters to share with others. Many of them are still writing letters and postcards.

It is much easier to write their stories in the form of a blog. When we write our stories and post them online we can potentially reach a reader base of over 1.56 billion internet users. I cannot understand why there are still so many organizations which persisted in ‘cutting down more trees’ to print brochures and letters to update their donors.

Donors often give to charities blindly and they really do not know how the money is going to be spent. It will be very rewarding for the donors to be able to read the stories and encounters faced by the volunteers in the frontline. People who give to orphanages to sponsor orphans would be thrilled to be able to read and see photos of the orphans posted in a blog by volunteers.

We are very privileged to have Dr Leslie Tay who came to share with us during the Goducate seminar (19-01-2010) on his experience with blogging online. Dr Tay is a general practitioner who became famous in the online web community in Singapore because of his food blog, “IeatIshootIpost.sg. His food blog has a very high ranking on Alexa and wide base of online readers.

Dr Leslie Tay from IeatishootIpost at Goducate.org Seminar

(Dr Leslie Tay sharing passionately about his experience in blogging)

He shared with us the following tips on how to write a blog:

1. Keep it concise and easily scannable

2. Keep in mind who you are writing for. Example: The style for writing to target readers who are businessmen is different from the style to target children.

3. Write something unique and useful

4. Make it personal. Write as if you are talking to a friend.

5. Provide an attention grabbing photo to evoke an emotional response.

6. The first paragraph must make an impact.

7. Make your Headline POP!

8. Make people chuckle

9. Provide nuggets of information

10. Aim to create a response.

Goducate is a non profit organization with a mission to help poorer Asians help themselves. We are grateful to Dr Leslie Tay for spending his precious time with us during the Goducate seminar. If you are good in blogging or an expert in SEO, we really want to hear from you. We need all the help and advice we could get from people like Dr Leslie Tay or experience bloggers to help us to help these poorer Asians.

We need you to be a voice for the poor Asians!