Goducate … Go And Educate!

On May 23, 2017 ISIS attacked the city of Marawi (in Mindanao, Philippines). Marawi is the largest Muslim city in the Philippines. Four months on, the fighting continues, and large parts of the city are reduced to rubble by daily aerial bombing.
An estimated 400,000 people have fled from the fighting, mostly to the neighbouring city of Iligan (40 minutes by car from Marawi). Of these 400,000, fewer than 10,000 are housed in government evacuee centers. The rest have found refuge among relatives in neighbouring villages. Almost all the evacuees are Muslims.

I went to Iligan with a team from Goducate in August and visited 4 “centers.” The living conditions were appalling, with hundreds living in crowded makeshift “rooms.” All the children were not attending school and were unlikely to return to school for several years (because schools have been destroyed).
In response to requests from the local leaders, we decided to start learning centers for these thousands of children. Since Goducate’s philosophy is “helping Asians help themselves”, we will be teaching the mothers among the evacuees to teach their own children. We have successfully established similar learning centers in Sabah for the past 8 years.

In October our Sabah team of teacher-trainers will start training the refugee mums ,who should then be able to teach their own children with Goducate curriculum and school supplies.
We hope that every child will have a chance to continue learning despite the difficult and dangerous conditions around them.

Goducate believes that every child deserves the chance of a decent education.

Last month AIESEC sent Goducate Laguna an exchange student from Malaysia. The student, Toh Jia Yong, is a medical student at the University of Malaysia.

During her month here she was exposed to the different Goducate programs, such as our health-information drives and vermifarming. In return she taught biology to the students in our Alternative Learning System (ALS) program. In doing so, she demonstrated her communication skills and her patience. She also trained some Goducate staff in basic first aid.

She had three reasons for applying to work as a community development volunteer with Goducate:

1. to expand her world view and improve her communication skills;
2. to impact those who need help; and
3. to share her medical background and other skills with others.

AIESEC is a platform for young people to explore and develop their leadership potential. This independent, international, non-profit, non-political organization is run by students and recent graduates of institutes of higher education. Founded in 1948 in 7 countries, it is now present in 126 countries and territories. AIESEC was originally an acronym for Association Internationale des Étudiants en Sciences Économiques et Commerciales, but has now become the name of the organization.

Toh Jia Yong writes:
“My first attempt at teaching was in the ALS program, which is designed for people who have not completed their schooling. Although the students were older than me, they showed me respect as a teacher. This is a value really worth learning from Filipinos.

Filipinos are well known for their hospitability, and I couldn’t agree more. Every Friday, I went to the community together with the Goducate scholars. To my surprise one nanay (mother) invited us into her home and insisted that we had a bite and chill out at her place. Although we had only bread and plain water, I was struck by her sincerity.

Another thing that I realized is that most Filipinos are grateful for what they have. I seldom heard people complaining about what they lacked, nor did they show a sense of inferiority. I hope to be able to always adopt this kind of attitude.

Being so exposed to a community whose way of life is very different from mine has helped me comprehend the nature of life. The opportunity that Goducate gave me to join in most of its activities allowed me to experience much of the local lifestyle. It will be one of the best memories that I shall bring back to Malaysia.”

 

In January this year Goducate Laguna rented an area of 1 hectare to expand its vermiculture and fertilizer project to meet growing demand (see blog, Aug 5).

This expansion gave 6 Goducate scholars the opportunity to work for 2 months (May and June) to earn some money for the academic year that started in August. And at weekends other teenagers drop by for some part-time work. They are often taught how to plant vegetable seedlings, which they can take home to plant there, or to sell off.

 

We grow eggplant, bitter gourd, ladies’ fingers, corn, cucumber, peppers, papaya and string beans. We have also started to culture mushrooms.  We started with 1000 fruiting bags in May, and for the past 2 months we have been harvesting an average of 2-3kg / day. We are hoping to add 2000 more fruiting bags.

We hope to conduct educational tours at our farm, showing schoolchildren how to produce organic fertilizers and to grow organic vegetables. We also plan to teach them how to make use of every space available at home, whether by adopting horizontal or vertical farming as well as container farming.