The SM- City San Pablo, a large shopping mall opened in Oct 2010, invited Goducate musicians in Laguna to play for their Mother’s Day Special Presentation. It was the third time that the mall has invited our musicians to do so.
Not only were our musicians able to entertain shoppers that day, but also they had a chance to distribute flyers promoting the private tutorials that our musicians give. 8 of the Goducate musicians are giving such tutorials.
The Goducate music program in Laguna has been a good way of keeping children off the streets, teaching them qualities such as discipline, team work, and diligence, and also a means of helping them earn some pocket money through performances such as at malls and at weddings.
Goducate musicians (at right side of foot of stage) entertaining crowd in between stage shows.
May 24th marked the end of our first 12-week term for Happy Happy English (HHE) at a dormitory for foreign workers. To commemorate this occasion, we held a graduation ceremony for the students.
Goducate started a program called HHE earlier this year after a riot in Little India late last year led to the restriction of foreign workers to that area. We started providing conversational English classes in a fun and unconventional way in the dormitory, focusing on building confidence in our students and making learning fun. There were three levels of classes. Over the 12-week program, we focused on workplace English, how to speak to supervisors, asking for directions, and talking about themselves and their families, among other things.
The graduation ceremony was preceded by a volleyball tournament between the dormitory workers and players from Goducate’s Connectayo program, a program for getting to know Filipino foreign workers through sport. The dormitory team thrashed the visiting team. We later found out that the dormitory had an Indian state player and a volleyball coach in their team!
The graduation ceremony was a chance for the students to showcase their talents in song, dance, and in a skit. They sang in their mother tongues as well as in English. The skit incorporated topics taught over the past 12 weeks. The students also performed a choreographed dance item. Some students also spoke, in video clips, or live, about what they had learned and achieved through this program. One from India described HHE as a “life-achievement program” where one can learn new things and feel good about them. The proudest moment for each of the students and for the teachers was when each student was called up on stage to receive the certificate.
After all the formalities, we had a time of dinner and catching up with the students. A young worker from Bangladesh told one of our teachers that this was the most memorable moment in his life so far.
Goducate is currently running HHE in 2 dormitories, each housing thousands of workers. We plan to start our program in a third dormitory soon.
The skitDance routine“Happy Happy English is a life-achievement program”
The boys from the Goducate Children’s Home in Cambodia spent 2 days and 1 night at a sports fest taking part in a soccer league organized by the Rawlings Foundation and held at the Rawlings Institute soccer field, an hour’s drive away from the Home.
The Goducate Children’s Home sits on about 7 hectares of land, and among the facilities there is a sports area with a junior soccer field. Kicking a ball around is one of the boys’ favourite leisure activities. There is no formal soccer training. The boys pick up the game playing among themselves and with the staff.
There were 9 other teams from different parts of Cambodia in the league. Prizes were given for the first 2 teams, but all went back with a consolation prize for participating in the league.
