Goducate … Go And Educate! – Page 80 – Helping Asians Help Themselves

2014-03-212014-03-20

Goducate Indonesia holds Summit in Batam

On March 11-13, some 50 people, made up of the Goducate team in Indonesia, together with their working partners and members of the headquarters team in Singapore, gathered in Batam for a “summit”. With the theme of the summit being “United to Serve”, the community development workers were given reminders (a) of the purpose of their being in Indonesia, namely, to serve the Indonesians, (b) of how they had been trained at the Goducate Training Center in Iloilo to be servants, and (c) of how to remain united.

They were also reminded of Goducate’s “5 Ps”—-purpose, people, program, place, and provision. When Goducate starts on a project, it works through the 5 Ps in that order. It starts with an aim to be achieved, recruits the appropriate people for the project, plans the program, decides where best to start the project, and then seeks for resources. It does not accumulate resources first and then look around for ways of using those resources.

The Goducate workers in Indonesia are scattered in Indonesia—in Pekanbaru, Batam, Medan, and Bandung—mainly teaching English to adults and children or helping villagers in agricultural projects. The summit was a chance for the various teams to update each other on what they are doing, and for those working on specific projects to brainstorm on how they can take their projects further. For instance, the Sing Your English team discussed how videos can be used to facilitate teaching by this method. As a result a drama team was formed to take this idea further.

During informal session on taking SYE program further.

Letting their hair...........down? — Letting their hair………..down?

2014-03-182014-03-19

A Montessori school in Laguna offers Goducate help in music and other programs

In early January our music team went to several private schools to promote our music tutorial program and our music studio. The effort has ended up with a partnership with one of the schools in more than one Goducate program, and has enabled several students to earn some pocket money.

The school was Morning Star Montessori School. The school management took an interest in our tutorial program, and invited our team to demonstrate their skills in singing, playing and instrument, and teaching. Naively, we expected the school’s approval immediately after the demonstrations. Instead what we got was a promise that the school would call with its decision.

Weeks, then months, passed, and we were about to give up when we received a call in the last week of February to ask us to start a voice-coaching lesson for more than 300 elementary and high school students in 2 of the school’s campuses for a performance during the forthcoming graduation ceremony.

A team of four is now coaching at Morning Star, two at each campus. Each pair will conduct 12 sessions, with each session lasting about 2 h. The team will paid around PhP 40,000 for these lessons. In addition our Harana live-music team of eight persons, four of whom are the trainers at Morning Star, will be paid another PhP 14,000 for two separate performances in the two campuses. Of the eight who are benefitting from this arrangement, 2 are Goducate staff, and the other 6 are college or high-school students.

The School management also came to visit our office to find out more about our work. They took an interest in our Alternative Learning System (ALS) program, through which we help people who have not finished their schooling to continue with their education through the Department of Education’s ALS. They have now offered us the use of two classrooms, one in each campus. This offer will enable us to start new ALS classes.

In addition, Morning Star is also discussing with us how we can partner together to do a feeding program in some government school.

Practising a song for school graduation ceremony

2014-03-142014-03-19

Goducate distributes Moringa seedlings to households in Lailara Sumba

In October last year, I went with another member of Goducate’s agriculture team in Indonesia to Lailara (population 1030), in Sumba, an island in eastern Indonesia. During our week there we taught the key leaders of the village about Moringa and its health benefits. They also involved the locals in planting 800 Moringa seeds in small polybags. The plan was for the raised seedlings to be transplanted some time in December 2013.

Typhoon Haiyan, however, devastated Central Philippines in November. Goducate shifted its focus to helping the typhoon victims, so I was not able to return to Sumba until late February.

Upon arrival in Lailara, the agriculture team immediately met with the new village chief, who expressed his unstinted support for the Backyard Moringa Project. Strategies were discussed, and the following day the key leaders were given hands-on demonstrations on how to dig the hole properly, add compost or complete fertilizer, transplant the seedlings, and construct a tree guard to protect the plant from stray animals.

There are 250 households in Lailara, and each household received two seedlings each. About 6-8 months from now, the village folk should be able to consume Moringa as vegetable. The next step will be to teach them how to process Moringa leaves into powder and other products.

A clan showing off the transplanted Moringa seedlings